Assateague Island National Seashore

Assateague Island National Seashore was the next stop on my journey east....finally getting to the coast. Assateague Island stretches north to south along the border of Maryland and Virginia. The unique thing about this sandy seashore is that wild horses live on the island. The horses can sometimes be seen along the roadside going down the island, causing quite the traffic jam. As soon as I got on the island I saw a group of horses off the side of the road, which was very cool to see. I checked in at the ranger station for my campsite and proceeded to my spot. I was in an ocean side campsite, which meant that I had to walk about 100 yards from the car down a boardwalk to where I could set up my tent. I set up my tent at my spot and carried wood for a fire when it got dark and proceeded to the beach which was just over a sand dune from my tent. After a few minutes a storm was quickly approaching that luckily I had advanced warning of. I went to dinner just off the island at some local crab shack. Food was not too bad, but not too fond of dining alone because of everybody looking at you. I returned to camp after the storm was over which was still before dark. I chilled on the beach for the last remaining sunlight and then went for another drive down the island, seeing several more horses. I went back to camp, started a fire and chilled for a while before going to bed. I woke up at about 1 am due to strong winds blowing sand into my tent from under the rain cover. I tried to go back to sleep till 2 am, and after wiping the sand off of me, got out of then tent. A strong wind was blowing sand everywhere ripping some people's tents from the ground stakes they had in place. My tent was holding strong, but the sand being blown in was too much. After seeing many people scrambling to pack up at 2 am, I decided that was also my only option. I did, in fact, have many hours of driving ahead of me the next day. A very cold breeze came over the beach followed by even darker clouds with lightning. I packed in a hurry and headed to the nearest city, Ocean City, Maryland. After trying about 6 hotels, finally found one with vacancy. I paid the overpriced fee and went to sleep after showering to get the sand off of me. It was a restful sleep, as I slept till about 11:30 am. The room was not nice, but it had a bed and that's all that I cared at the time.

Thoughts on Assateague: I liked Assateague very much. You get beach atmosphere which is lovely and a bonus of wild horses roaming about the island. Not too much more to say about the place. Very pretty. I just had quite a bit of bad weather luck (which is my norm when it comes to tent camping). Other than that, very pleasant place.