Assateague Part 2

map (2)

We left you in our last post as we arrived to Assateague Island National Seashore on a beautiful spring evening.  We also shared the sad news about Emma’s illness, so we’ll start with an update before taking you back to Assateague.  Emma is still with us.  She is such a tough old girl, stoically fighting a hopeless battle.  She is alert and bright, but is eating less and moving a lot slower.  It’s a matter of time, but it is time full of love, petting, and liver treats as it should be.  Here she is, looking a bit sad. Sigh.

IMG_9991

Assateague is a barrier island that is shared by Maryland and Virginia.  On the Maryland side, there is a state park and a National Seashore, which is where we stayed.  Dogs are not allowed in the state park and on the Virginia side, so that helped with our decision.

The east side of the island is one long beach along the Atlantic Ocean of white sands, shifting dunes, hopping dolphins, sea birds, and roaming horses, while the west side consists of coastal bays teeming with blue crab and mussels and some roaming horses.  In the midst of the two there are salt marshes and maritime forest, each with their own ecosystem and unique dwellers — and you guessed it roaming horses.

Every evening presented itself with a great sunset show, whether we were on the dunes watching the back end of the sunset, or on the bay side, where the sun actually set.

Did we mention the horses? Yeah, they are everywhere!  You need to watch for them when you are driving since they could be walking on the road or along it.  You see their heads pop over the dunes, and you hear the twigs break under their feet in the forest as they slowly graze in the bush.

They are not shy.  They suckle and groom and mate.  They own the place and let you know that as gallop though the campground, or just stop for a nap.  It’s us, the campers and hikers that need to be a little shy and keep our distance.  More specifically, a bus length of a distance away.

This small band came by the campground each and every morning and checked each one of the campsites, which makes us wonder how many campers ignore the no feeding rules, or are just not careful enough.

It was refreshing to see them on the beach, relaxing away from the tourists, taking turns as guards.

We learned to expect the morning visits, but they managed to startle us one night as we were sitting by the fire and suddenly one of them was standing right next to us snorting softly.  We retreated into the van in an attempt to keep our distance from them and just watched them graze through the window.

Luckily Emma is used to horses and doesn’t go insane like she does when she sees deer and other wild animals.

We went for a couple of drives off the island.  Berlin, the nearest place, is a charming little town and we went for a short stroll, window shopping, and a visit to the local butcher for something to cook on the campfire.

On a cooler and breezy day we drove through Ocean City to Rehoboth.  We drove through the strip of hotels and all-you-can-eat crab joints and ended up in Rehovoth.  Did you know that Rehoboth means streets in Hebrew?  Well, it did have streets so it may be an appropriate name for this town…Rehoboth also has a cool ice cream joint with hundreds of flavours, including one that is made of ghost peppers.   You have to sign a waver before ordering one of those deadly cones.  We ended up not getting any ice cream; it was too cold and Emma was starting to show signs of illness again, so we headed back to the campground.

We had Emma to the vet just before our trip and her blood work was not improving.  The vet suggested that we do some X-Rays when we get back.  We started suspecting the worst and decided cutting our trip a little short and head back the next day.  We emailed the vet for the radiography appointment as soon as we get back home.

There was some sever weather forecast for the next couple of days, so here we are dodging storms again.  We had a few stops planned for the way back, but we had to skip a few.  Some because we didn’t want to leave Emma in the van, and some because there was not much point in hiking in a torrential rain, or a tornado.

We did manage to stop at the patent model museum at the Hagley library in DuPont country, Delaware.  The library is part of the Hagley museum, a very large complex of mills, gardens and structure echoing the DuPont Company history.  A visit to the grounds would require a few hours, so instead we drove to the other side of the complex and visited the patent display in the library.

Here is a glimpse of the surrounding area.

In 1790, President George Washington signed the first patent legislation in American history. From 1790 until 1880, the U.S. Patent Office required patent applicants to submit scale models of their inventions, along with written descriptions and drawings – the only one in the world to mandate the submission of a model with a patent application.

Many of these models did not survive the nineteenth century.  Fires in the Patent Office in 1836 and 1877 destroyed or damaged more than 100,000 models.  Over the years, the remaining models were returned to the descendants of the inventors, placed at the Smithsonian Institution, or sold at auction.

Alan and Ann Rothschild, had a large collection of these models  and In 2015, the Rothschilds’ remarkable collection became a part of Hagley.  What a unique exhibition of invention and early Americana.

We left Hagley and drove on through increasingly bad weather, but we were able to stay just to the side of the worst of it.  Darkness snuck on us again and we decided to stop for the night at Ives Run State Park near Tioga, Pennsylvania.  It as late and we drove through the open gate since the office had a close sign on the window and we couldn’t find any information on the board – we’ll deal with paying them in the morning.

The park looked empty except for one RV near the water, but we chose to go higher just in case since there was still a lot of rain in the forecast.  Just as we settled in, a car with two stern looking guys arrived and they announced that we have to leave since the campground is closed.  Didn’t you see the closed sign on the office window, they asked? We shrugged, and said that practically every park’s office is closed at night, so no, it really wasn’t clear that the park is closed.  They said we could park in the parking lot near the office, and added for no apparent reason that if we don’t leave, they will have to call the police.

Too funny, you just offered us free boondocking and you think we will try and stay in the park by force?  The parking lot was nice and level and we had a really good, free night sleep.

Another stop at Letchworth State Park.  The air was frigid and the water below angry and muddy.

We seem to have a good track record for crappy weather and we made sure we won’t disappoint this time as well.  The way back took us through high winds, torrential rains, tornado warnings, flood warning, fog, sleet, freezing rain, and finally – snow.  Yes, we had to skip some of the places that we wanted to stop at because of the rain, but that’s a good thing because now we have a reason to go back!

We watched the ice floes under the bridge to Canada and wondered if spring will ever come this year.

BY THE NUMBER:

  • Cost: CAD$804 (US$600) (gas, food, RV Parks, and tolls)
  • Distance: 2764 KM (1,717 miles)
  • Fuel Average: 7.24 km/l (17 mpg)

If you enjoyed this post, please follow us.  You can like our Facebook page, share on your favourite social media page, or drop us a line to tell us about your experiences.  When you shop via our affiliate links, shop on Amazon.com in the United States, or Amazon.ca in Canada, we will get a portion of the sales.

2 thoughts on “Assateague Part 2

  1. [m]ihály says:

    Interesting place, nice photos.

    Was your camper van destiny to become a Mail Delivery truck? “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”.

    We hate the idea of loosing a dog…just kills us. When the kids flew the coupe, we didn’t feel that bad. But NOTHING beats unconditional love. Don’t want to be in your shoes right now…

    All the best. Warm wishes at this moment in your lives.

We would love to hear from you!