Spring Break: The Lemons

Last Thursday, we headed out for our seventh state park, Assateague. It's on Maryland's eastern shore, (right on the Atlantic!), south of Ocean City. It's famous for beautiful beaches and wild ponies.

Because I'm a planner, our reservations were made weeks, if not months, ago. This is good because the campground was completely booked. This is bad because we never know what the weather was going to be. Sure, I looked at averages. I figured we wouldn't be getting in the water, but knew my boys would love playing in the sand all day. I knew Chuck and I would love sitting on the beach watching them play in the sand. And I knew that by going in the spring we'd avoid the mosquitoes, of which there are TONS during the summer.

What we didn't bargain for, however, was wind. And lots of it. And cold wind. And parents who forgot to pack jackets. Let's see how it all turns out, shall we?

The park didn't disappoint in the wild horses. They were just walking around and eating grass, a lot like Yellowstone's buffalo.


We got to our site and set up camp. Just over that dune was the ocean. Cool, right? But notice the tent. It's completely bowing in the wind. Eek.


Because of the wind, I had to make our sandwiches in the car. This was not ideal. I was so afraid that I'd drop a big blob of jelly on the seats. Didn't. Phew.


Since we didn't feel like hanging out in our campsite, we headed to the park's visitors' center. We walked across the bridge and used the telescopes to look at more horses.


Once back at our campsite, poor Ollie (whose hat and gloves were left at home) was freezing and stayed in the car. So Rhett and I walked on the beach. It was gorgeous. Because it's so relatively early in the season, there were tons of shells all over. Also, it was empty. Also, the wind made for some super awesome waves. It really was incredible.




But really, what could we do? We couldn't make a fire to stay warm or to cook, because the wind would put a stop to that. So we left again, this time headed to Ocean City. We walked around and got dinner. After dinner, we went back and went to sleep. I'm pretty sure Chuck and I were asleep before the boys.


In the morning, Chuck and I made the tough decision to pack it in. I mean, what could we do? We had hoped the wind would calm down by morning, but nope. Still strong (20-25 miles an hour). We were all still cold, even though Rhett ignored it. Rhett threw a tantrum because, well, he didn't want to go. It was hard. But it was the right decision. Sadly.


Wednesday: Lemons into lemonade!

P.S. I should have known it wasn't meant to be when we weren't actually at the state park. We were at the national park. We'll definitely go back to this one again, but the state park. I'm sure it will be perfect. Because, you know, I can totally predict these things.