Assateauge Island and Old Rag

Friday, May 26, 2017

Assateauge Island and Old Rag

We spent this weekend camping out on Assateague Island with several friends. We rarely go to the beach. Michael and I grew up about as far from any ocean beaches as you can get in this country and neither one of us saw the ocean for the first time until we were adults. We just don't feel the draw that a lot of other folks do (the mountains, on the other hand...). We just don't get out there much. We've been out to Assateague a few times, but always in late fall or early winter and we hadn't ever spent more than a couple of hours out there. This weekend, some friends organized a camping weekend out there and we had a great time in spite of some marginal weather.

We arrived on Friday and, although the water is still pretty chilly, it was warm enough to play in the surf for a little while. We had great weather that night and even lucked out that a large thunderstorm passed just south of us.

Our campsite in the state park.

Improvised clotheslines between the Subarus.

Oenothera humifusa (Seaside Evening Primrose). These were all over the beach and they just looked like a non-descript groundcover. Shortly before sunset, they all bloomed.

Saturday, we awoke to high winds, which only strengthened as the day progressed. In the middle of the afternoon the gusts were around 40 mph. It was also 20 degrees colder than the previous day. We originally planned to kayak on Saturday, but that wasn't in the cards. We wound up doing a bit of walking on the beach and on some of the bayside paths. Then we spent the afternoon in a coffee shop.

Early morning beach walk

A sandpiper feeding in the surf

Michael flying a small kite

A crab burrow

A horseshoe crab shell.

Sisyrinchium atlanticum (Coastal Blue-Eyed Grass)

This morning, the wind settled down some and we were able to go kayaking on Ayers Creek, which is slightly inland and a little more protected than the bay behind the island.

Heading upstream

Our group where the creek narrowed a little.

One of our friends

Michael near the end of our kayaking trip.

We had a blast and many thanks to our friends who organized the trip.

I also wanted to post a few pictures from our last trip up Old Rag with ORMS. It was kind of a crazy day: over 90 degrees when earlier in the week it had been in the 40s and raining. People were so not prepared. We rarely give out water because we don't want people to think they don't have to carry it. We wound up filtering water out of a water source on the mountain because there were people in visible heat distress.

In any case, there were lots of great flowers blooming and we had a good day:

Houstonia cerulea (Bluets)

Geranium maculatum (Wild Geranium). As an aside, if you have a sunny spot with marginal soil in your garden, these do really well and they are widely available at local nurseries.