An extra day on Assateague Island

Since Tuesday was so misty and cloudy, and since the forecast for Wednesday had some sun in it, we decided to check and found that our campsite was available for Wednesday night too -- so we booked the additional night to see more of the park.

Wednesday had some sun... we walked across the dunes to the viewpoint at the ocean...

Looking back at the campground from the viewpoint.

Looking north you can barely see Ocean City, Maryland's big buildings along the ocean.

Coming back to Gracie along the path over the dunes.

There were warning signs at the bathroom area on appropriate behavior around the horses...

"Wild horses bite, kick, and charge - don't turn your vacation into a hospital visit. Stay at least 40 feet (a school bus length) away from horses."

Gracie in her site

We decided to take the bikes out..

The bike trails are nice and flat!

We thought we might see some horses, but... none to be found on Wednesday.

This was on the bay (on the west side of the island) - in an area that was marked as "Old Ferry Landing". The water was so calm and peaceful!

Since seeing the horses was so uncertain, Carl gave as his opinion that they don't actually stay here all the time, they are brought onto the island at times via horse trailers, left to walk around for a couple of hours, and then transported back to their stables. The droppings that are all around are trucked in too, and the park rangers distribute it around the island to give the appearance that horses have been there. We saw a ranger picking up some droppings with a shovel... she made it look like she was moving it away from an area where people would walk, but *we knew* that she was just distributing it to continue to support the myth that horses live here!

Assateague Island National Seashore Campground

As we were planning our trip from Delaware to the Virginia Landing Thousand Trails Campground down in Quimby, Virginia, I realized that we were going to pass through Maryland, but we weren't planning to stop for the night! So... I looked for a campground along the eastern shore of Maryland, and found that Assateague Island had a national campground -- I checked and there was a site available! What an opportunity!

I have had a special fascination with the horses of Assateague Island since reading "Misty of Chincoteague" when I was a young girl -- Carl had never heard of it, so, Monday evening we watched the move "Misty" and he got an introduction to the wild ponies and the heritage of "Pony Penning Day" and other events around this area.

It was rainy and cloudy as we got to the National Park on Tuesday -- we weren't exactly sure where we were supposed to go to check in for camping, so we decided to go ahead and head directly to our campsite.

When we got to the turn in road to the campground, there were a number of ponies eating along the road...

... I'm pretty sure the white cloud is from a drop of water on the window...

A foal with another horse...

Same foal with a different horse.

After we got parked in our site, we looked out the window and could see the ponies grazing along the park road behind us (just a small white speck next to a bush...).

... zoomed in...

I thought Miss Kitty would enjoy seeing the ponies...

... but she was busy watching a "Cat" across the road pushing sand back out of the campsite across from us.

These were the same ponies we had seen before...

... zoomed in...

There's no guarantee that you'll see the ponies while visiting the National Park - so we were grateful to see them!

We are in the "Oceanside" campground, and there is a walkway over the dunes right across the road from our campsite.

Looking back at Gracie and the Jee-rage as we took the walkway across the dunes. There are restrooms and showers right next to our site.

Looking up the beach -- it was cloudy and misty.

Looking back toward the campground.

Although it was misty and cloudy, we were glad to find a site at this campground!

Delaware Seashore State Park South Campground

We wanted a campsite to stop near Cousin George, and found that there was a state park along the coast. Unfortunately, the weather was not very conducive to visiting the beach; there were coastal flood warnings due to the fact that there was a higher-than-normal high tide and a storm off the coast pushing more water in. When we arrived on Monday afternoon, we found water over the road (but more like puddles) in to the campground, but just past the campground, there was a road that was temporarily impassable due to high water, and some of the campsites were temporarily under water.

We went for a walk around the campground before we left on Tuesday morning:

The campground was nice but sites were generally pretty compact. It felt like a large parking lot.

We thought this looked like a short rig to have a tag axle -- the name on the outside indicated it to be a Country Coach Allure 470, and, from what I can find online, they are 42' long, but this one looked quite short.

Bridge over the Indian River Inlet -- which was right in front of the campground.

These were some of the sites that had been under water at high tide on Monday.

Another view of the bridge - it had pretty lights in the evening.

A friend of ours, Bob Myers, took this picture of the Indian River Inlet bridge back in September when the harvest moon was rising.

When I contacted Bob to get permission to share his picture on this blog entry, he provided me with another one too, this one taken from the south side, probably close to where we were camped!

A view out of Gracie's front window on Tuesday morning -- grey and rainy -- it would have been a nice view if the sun had been out!

Although it was overcast, we were happy with where we had camped and think it could be a place we'd like to return to visit!

And... we've arrived in Delaware!

We left Chestnut Lake Campground in New Jersey on Monday morning... we had planned to take the ferry from Cape May, New Jersey to Lewes, Delaware, but decided on Sunday that the weather forecast was not good for a ferry trip (rainy and windy) so we decided to drive further (west in New Jersey, south across the Delaware Memorial Bridge, and then south east down Delaware) and save the ferry fare while avoiding any seasickness that might come on the ferry ride.

By heading over to the highways on the western side of New Jersey, we came into more of a trucking area and decided to go ahead and fill up with diesel. We stopped at a TA where our fuel card got us $0.42 discount per gallon (off the price shown).

The pump we stopped at had this warning -- thankfully we don't need the passenger side pump! At least they set expectations!

Coming up on the Delaware Memorial Bridge

Crossing from New Jersey into Delaware

Carl did a large part of the driving on Monday!

Looking up the Delaware - it was a cloudy misty day...

We crossed a couple of other bridges on Delaware Highway 1 before getting to our campground at Delaware Seashore State Park for Monday evening. We also drove over to cousin George and Cindy's house to pick up our house batteries that we had delivered there last week. We were hoping to be able to take them out for dinner for being willing to accept our packages, but... in the interest of staying self-isolated as much as possible, we said that we would try to come another time to take them for dinner! We unfortunately forgot to take pictures, but it was good to see them and chat for a few minutes!
 

Chestnut Lake RV Campground

We've spent the last week at Chestnut Lake RV Campground in Port Republic, New Jersey. It is a rather tight campground - sites are close together both side-to-side and front-to-back. For the first part of last week, it was not very full, so wasn't too bad, but when it is pretty full, it is tight!

Gracie and the Jee-rage in our space...

Looking back behind... there are no rigs behind us because the electric boxes are out of service.

Right now, there is no one parked in front of us, so we have a view of the lake.

Looking down the line of rigs -- it is pretty full!

We're heading south on Monday, toward Delaware. We had planned to take the ferry from Cape May to Lewes, Delaware, but the weather was predicted to be unpleasant, so we decided to drive a little further and avoid the ferry. Hoping that the sun might come out as we drive!