Assateague Island

Remember again when the government was shut down? Well it was very inconvenient in that we had planned to take our visiting friends to the Assateague Island National Seashore, a national park, which means it was closed. We were lucky that there is a state side to the island as well.

Assateague Island is so beautiful, and since you have to pay to visit it, it's way less crowded. A year pass to the national side is only $30 though so it's worth it! The island has wild ponies that live there!

One side of the island is a marshy inlet and the other side is the Atlantic ocean, about a 15 minute walk apart from each other, so it makes for some beautiful landscape.

Our friends are pretty much amazing and thanks to Southwest, flew out all the camping gear we would need since we didn't bring any out with us. It was cold and stormy all weekend long, but we persevered and camped anyway.

At one point the sun peaked out and it warmed up a tiny bit so we ventured over to the ocean. Slowly we got further and further in. Take this with a grain of salt because I'm an Oregon ocean kind of girl, but the water wasn't bad at all. It was wild and so fun to play in the waves. We were careful not to go out too far, and to keep track of our belongings so we could see how far the heavy current was pulling us.

Remember those wild ponies I was telling you about? We were so stoked to see them. They're beautiful, and really not so wild. They have learned how to kick open coolers and turn on spigots. Those trixy little minxes. Well, we were getting ready for dinner and the only thing out was some marshmallows sitting on the picnic table, which we were all standing around when a group of 10+ horses came up to us. We were so stoked they were coming that they stole our marshmallows right out from under us. 

Then they proceeded to eat them, bag and all. No s'mores for us that night. 

It stormed all night long. We didn't have a good tarp, so poor Charles woke up in a wet sleeping bag. It was great to be able to camp right on the other side of the dunes from the ocean. On the National side you can camp on the beach which we can hopefully go back and do next summer.

We sneaked over to the National side, and tried to find our crabbing spot, but when we got near some buildings we saw a person and all turned around and ran. We're real brave like that.

We attempted to go crabbing over in a different spot, and this picture pretty much sums up the 10 minutes we were there.

If you ever make it out to the beautiful island that is Assateague, stop along your way in Berlin, Maryland. It is the most amazing actual small town I've ever been in. It looks like a movie set. Runaway Bride was filmed there. Not like built sets there, like filmed in the buildings there because it's so beautiful you don't need sets.

And if you do go there, hit up the Baked Dessert Cafe, and get yourself a peach dumpling. You can come back and thank me later.