Farewell to Assateague Island!

Today we're off on the road again, after four nights in AINS, Despite some bad weather and horrendous biting greenhead flies which seemed hellbent on attacking my ears and face, it was truly a wonderful place to stay.  We were devoid of horses in our camp loop yesterday but "our" herd decided to come back for a visit sometime in the middle of the night.

Miriam and I stayed in our tent for the first time on the trip, seeing as it was easier to load up the car in the evening and leave just the tent and bedding to be packed after breakfast (and before the 11 a.m. check-out time).  As luck would have it, Mohawk and his ladies strolled right through our campsite around 10 o'clock-ish while we were quitely reading in our tent.  I'm not sure if they realized we were in there or not (although I doubt they would care either way), and Miriam frequently poked her head out of the zipper door to get some close up views as they grazed just feet from us.  I was a little nervous that we might get trampled since I have no idea how good equine night vision is, but Miriam assured me that they wouldn't because "there aren't any warning signs saying to watch out for it."  Not exactly the most comforting explanation from someone who is a walking multi-volume horse encyclopedia!!

Alas, we were not trampled to death in our sleep, although Miriam did wake me up around 1 a.m.  to help get the rain fly put on the tent after seeing a few flashes of lightning just a ways off.  Only a few minutes after the fly was up and we were back inside it started raining, eventually working up to a few hefty downpours with pretty substantial wind through the night.  We awoke nice and dry though, with a stiff breeze that thankfully kept pretty much all the flies away for the morning.  Our herd was lazily occupying one of our neighbor's campsite and seemed to be making their (the campers') morning routine a bit difficult since they were grazing and lying around all their camping gear, car, and picnic table!  Thankfully that wasn't us as we were busy trying to pack up our site most of the morning.

Me yelling a "Chin" a few days ago...she was trying to get at our stuff

A very happy Miriam trying to keep her distance from "Baby".  I doubt it was an easy task for her!

Miriam spent some time in the visitor center on our way out rifling through a horse register to try to find the five horses in our herd.  Most were positively identified but a few she was not totally sure of since they lacked distinguishing marks (at least any shown in the single photo for each horse's file in the register).  We managed to get a "passport" for the national parks, which is just a little book with some historical info and room to stamp cancellations from each of the national parks.  I guess this is the alternative to giving out window stickers from each park, which is what the parks started with when they were created as a national system.

Hopefully tonight we will be staying with some Grossman-Garber family friends (Walter and Mary Ellen) in Prince Frederick, MD.  The timing is perfect since there is a pretty bad storm headed into the area with all sorts of warnings attached.  Not exactly the time to be camping if we have a choice in the matter.

I had some charging difficulties with my phone the past day or two so we haven't been able to update since we need the USB for the keyboard which means no power to the phone.  Currently we are updating from a Dunkin' Donuts/Baskin Robins somewhere in Berlin, MD.  Since they have wifi and a plug we were able to plug in and update on the laptop, hence the above posted photos.  Miriam is planning on doing a full photo update for the other legs of our trip tonight from the comfort of a real home.  I'm also hoping for a bit of clear weather and a semi-level driveway as our brakes are squealing something awful at every stop.  There's nothing wrong with them, but the silicone backing on the pads must have worn off which requires taking the wheel and brake caliper off to re-silicone and thus quiet them.  Not terribly involved work, but kinda hard to do when you're at a campsite.  We could very well leave it be for the rest of the trip but it gets quite embarrassing when you're pulling into a parking lot or up to a Ranger station and it sounds like you're dragging nails across a chalkboard.

That's about all for now, we still have many many stories to share from Assateague, the road, and our other stops in NJ but we really should hit the road again before we wind up swamped in rush hour traffic.

Till next time!
RhodeKill Rob