Assateague Island National Seashore

I forgot to mention in my last post that, with the additional of Maryland to our map, we’ve completed the New England area of the country and we have just 5 states remaining to visit in the contiguous US.  We’ll have to make sure our travel plans take us through those last few states in the next year or so!

So, back to the weekend . . . Finally, as promised, Sunday turned out to be a beautiful day!  Nicolas had to go home in the afternoon, so we went to mass early so we would have more of the day to work with.

The Assateague Island National Seashore is home to a herd of wild horses, and just a few miles down the road from us, so that was our destination for the day.  We stopped in at the Visitor Center

to get an idea of where to go, and Nicolas picked up his military annual national parks pass.

Assateague Island is partially state park, with a campground and beach, and partially national seashore, with several walking trails, campsites on the ocean side and the bay side, beach and an area for over sand driving.  Nicolas would have loved to go out on the sand with his truck, but this area requires an annual pass at a cost of $70 – too much for a one time visit!

We were just driving through the state park on our way to the national park when we spotted our first wild horse.  He was walking along on the bike path, and park staff were following in a golf cart to keep him away from cars.

We continued on to the first of several trails, the Marsh Trail, and spotted a couple more horses along the road,

and several more out in the marsh.

We walked along the Marsh Trail, where Tom and Nick were tormented by a huge seagull,

until Tom scared him away!

There was a small Nature Center,

and the bay seemed to be a favorite location for windsurfers and parasurfers.

The next trail we came across was the Forest Trail,

which took us through a pine forest into the marsh.  We didn’t see anymore horses, but plenty of evidence that they had been there!

There were plenty of birds, though --

pelicans,

egrets,

and even a bald eagle at the top of one of the trees in the marsh.

I zoomed in as much as I could with my camera, and then cropped the picture down as much as possible without making the picture too blurry.

It’s not really clear, but you can definitely tell it’s an eagle.

I took a few pictures of the marsh before we moved on to the ocean side of the island, and the dunes.

The last trail was the Dunes Trail,

which took us out on the dunes in a loop that passed by an old attempt at creating another boardwalk like Ocean City. 

There are remnants of an asphalt road, and a few old pieces of building foundations, although most of it has been covered back up by sand.

We continued along the trail, and at one point I was taking a picture of Nicolas while he was taking a picture of us!

After the trail, we walked down to check out the beach.  It was low tide, so the beach was huge!

Nice!

I actually end up in some of the pictures when we have Nicolas with us!

There’s my junior photographer!

It was a beautiful day, and we really enjoyed exploring Assateague Island – in addition to the hiking trails, there’s also a bike trail along the entire length of the road through the state park and national park.  It would be a great place to bring bikes.

We were all getting a little hungry, so we headed into Ocean City for some dinner and then it was time for Nicolas to head home.

We were sad to see him go, but we’ll see him again in a few days when we arrive at his campground . . .  and we’ll be there for over a month!

Tom and I hung around for another day – rainy day Monday – and were rewarded with an amazing sunset . . . even if it was a little blustery and chilly again!