CAMPING. We (me, Hank, Ben, Luke, Dan, Betsy) went to Assateague Island for the weekend and had a grand ol time. This is an island National Park that has two herds of wild horses roaming around. Pretty beautiful. There are two theories about the horses' origins - one is shipwrecks...apparently not likely. Another theory from the National Park Service brochure: "During the 17th century free-roaming horses, cows, sheep and pigs caused expensive crop damage to local farms. Farmers were required to pay taxes on all mainland livestock and fence them in. Like people in the 21st century, these resourceful coastal residents looked for ways to avoid paying this tax. They turned to nearby Assateague Island with its abundance of food, shelter and a natural “corral” made of water to solve their problem. It is likely that modern Assateague horses are descendents of those hardy animals turned loose on the island to graze tax-free." In the late 1800's and early 1900's there were some really bad storms that made the island unlivable, so now it just belongs to the ponies.
We left on Friday, drove the 3 hours to Berlin, MD (just south of Ocean City...ahh memories), and got our permit and packs strapped on by 3:45. The ranger asked us for an emergency contact, but instead of asking just like that he goes "I need the number of someone to identify the bodies." It was funny, in hindsight, but when a 6'3'' white park ranger with droopy eyelids and a six inch-long goatee that hooks to the right asks you this with a straight face your first thought is "oh my gosh, is this dude gonna kill me?" So we hiked, and couldn't find the trail. It smelled really bad, so we did some sleuthing and found this:
A dead whale! Must have been some kind of storm to beach it. I can only assume that rangers with trucks towed it out past the dunes. gross, MAN.
We figured out that the beach was the trail. briliant. So we kept hiking. It was hot, sunny, and sandy. If I had ever been to the desert, it would have reminded me of that. That's Hank then me.
We took a few pics on the beach and drew some instructions and innapropriate messages for our friends hiking in behind us....
Shout out to Hank, who had a stomach flu or food poisoning on Thursday and Friday, but insisted on coming camping. Papa Bear: brave man.
We got to the wooded campsite in about 3 hours (5ish mile hike - which felt like 7 miles in the sand...) Here is me collecting firewood. We were glad to camp on the bay side (no, not Saved By the Bell) of the island because the wind was whipping off the ocean and fire, let alone firewood, would have been impossible to start/find on the ocean side campsites.
Beautiful sunset Friday night.
It got really cold on Friday night. Our tent missing a rain-cover didn't help the insulation problem...this is me on Saturday morning around 7am. I'm asleep...and thankful for the mummy/hooded sleeping bag...apparently I was breathing heavily. sorry dudes.
Collecting more wood for Saturday night's fire.
Saturday evening after a day at the beach of frisbee and sunburning, we hang out and prep the fire.
(Luke, Ben, Hank, Dan (with the hatchet), Betsy, me)
Fire is awesome.
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