Mister, would you please help my pony I love Assateague. This is my second time there and each time has been awesome in its own way. This year seemed decidedly more chill than last year but I really needed that. I've been in overdrive lately, running around like crazy, and a relaxing beach weekend is precisely what the doctor ordered. Not to say that Va Beach a few weekends ago wasn't fun but the weather was just about perfect, the beach not crowded and the water was absolutely the most perfect temperature.
FRIDAY 12:30pm - Pick up Evan at Clint and Carolyn's. Drive to Home Depot to buy some tiki torches and citronella fuel to keep the bugs at bay at the beach. Word on the beach was that the bugs were swarming in Biblical proportions so we didn't want to leave anything to chance. Picked up some rations at Safeway and played Tetris with loading up the car in the pickup lane. 2:15 - Pick up ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) lonecellotheory at his apartment, bid the Phoebe-monster farewell and set off to another Home Depot to pick up extra wicks for the tiki torches. Ian then notices the torches already came with wicks. Evan and I feel semi-retarded for not having noticed that sooner. 3:00 - ON THE ROAD! There's some traffic on 50 but nothing too horrible. I finally got Sirius radio back in my car and made everyone listen to E! True Hollywood Stories. It's amazing just how interesting Farah Fawcett's life was. Mariah Carey's life was decidedly less riveting. 6:30 - Finally we're crossing the bridge to Assateague Island. Ian spots a lone pony way off in the marsh but none were on the side of the road. I'm getting worried that maybe there won't be ponies everywhere like last year. But as we drove up to the gate to the national park some ponies were grazing off to the side. We're all getting really excited about the trip. 7:00 - Nobody's at camp initially but it was sort of relaxing being able to set up our tents etc at our own pace. Our site this year was a lot closer to the outdoor bathrooms/showers than last year which also meant closer to our cars. It was really convenient. Plus we were much closer to the boardwalk up to the actual beach. 8:00 - Ian and I walk down to the beach and bum around for a little while before dinner. The sand crabs were just starting to come up and scurry frantically over the sand. The Best Sandsculpture Idea EVER was hatched but it was getting too late to enact that day. 9:00 - The balance of the night alernated between drinking, walks down to the beach and just hanging out. Smores with dark chocolate? Are INCREDIBLE. I have to thank my coworker for giving me the idea. 1:00am - BED.
SATURDAY8:30 am - HOT. HOT. HOT. Sun is beating down on the tent. It was comfortable up until that point and then HOT. We crawl out of our tent and it's about 10 degrees cooler outside our tent. Discovered at some point ponies raided our campsite and made off with some Fiery Hot Cheetos, hamburger ones and the cruelest cut of all? OUR MARSHMALLOWS. They were unable to break into the box of granola bars (but God knows they tried!) so we grabbed a couple bars and head down to the beach.10:00 am - NOTHING is better than bobbing around in the ocean, followed by reading on the beach for awhile, followed by more ocean swimming followed by passing out on the beach. Which also lead to me getting a little sunburned but not as bad as I did last year. There were also two man horses feeling pretty frisky on the beach, ifyouknowwhatimean. Brokeback Island?12:30 - Head back to the campsite. Figured sunstroke might not be a good way to start off the beach weekend.3:00 - shavemywrists and the Last of the International Playboys, Britboy, arrived. Helped them set up their tent and whatnot and then head down to the beach. The new Coors that come in plastic bottles are the best idea ever for beaching except I'm not sure if you should bring said beers down to the beach and announce to your friends playing in the ocean that: HEY!!!! I HAVE BEER! I think half the beach looked our way but whatev.4:00 - Finally we enacted The Best Sandsculpture Idea Ever: SNAKES ON A PLANE ON THE BEACH. This was harder than it looked because we only had our hands to work with. We were also going on memory of what the Snakes on the Plane movie poster looked like but we came up with a pretty good approximation, I think. Upon completing the plane but before starting on the snakes, Ian had an idea for THE MOST AMAZING SAND SCULPTURE IDEA EVER: Building two huge sand rectangles in front of the plane a la the World Trade Center. SNAKES ON A PLANE ON THE BEACH almost got scrapped for our "Never Forget" tribute but we ultimately decided we couldn't make something like that in broad daylight and not expect to get our asses kicked. At a national park, no less. But someday, folks, it'll happen.
Oh, yes. 8:00 - Return to the campsite, shower, and then Ian, Britboy and I decided to make a "run for the border" and pick up some assorted supplies. Got stuck behind a minivan leaving the park that needed to STOP AT OMGEVERYLASTFUCKINGPONYOROTHERWILDLIVINGANIMAL they saw on the way out. If, after spending a whole day on an island overrun with not only ponies but pygmy deer and they didn't manage to see either, then they all must have Helen Keller-like vision. Or their heads stuck up their asses. Eventually make it to the convenience store and I paid $12.99 for a thing of sunblock. Highway robbery!9:00 - The rest of the night was spent chilling out and grilling up some hamburgers that the Biblethumpers from the next campsite over gave us because they had bought too much. I'll listen to them sing Kumbaya all morning in exchange for 3 fucking pounds of beef. The rest of the beef we brought back to make meatballs and tacos, respectively. 12:30 am - Our friend Christian's birthday is the 6th so we assembled a beach bonfire for him. I so wish I had a summer birthday; nobody ever wants to do something in the middle of January plus it always seems to sleet/snow/be cold on my birthday every year. Anyway, while I didn't see this happen, a very confused sand crab scuttled his way directly into our fire and was promptly en fuego. Party foul, dude!2:00 am - BED. I pass out utterly and completely.
SUNDAY8:00am - OH.MY.GOD. It is even hotter than yesterday at this time. Wake up and decided I couldn't go back to sleep with sweat dripping down my leg. Crawl out and laid down in the tent's shadow for a few minutes before packing everything up into the car. Head down to the beach for a couple hours before heading out sometime after noon.12 noon - Ate at the Assateague Crabhouse that's just on the mainland, just off the bridge into Assateague Island. Everything we had was (suprisingly?) very good and if anyone is in the area, I definitely recommend it. The trip back to DC was decidedly quieter than the ride in as we were all pretty exhausted.
Really, Assateague is a ton of fun. Yes, you do need to be prepared.... TO HAVE A GOOD TIME, THAT IS! (ha ha ha) The bugs weren't bad at all and the weather was just about perfect although if people hadn't thought to bring some canopies and what not it could have been pretty hot out there - you quite literally camp on the beach or at least in the shadow of the dunes that protect the beach. So, one thing we might have learned from last year was to have some kind of shade from the sun. I also learned that I should liberally apply sunblock before smoking any herbal substances. We, however, forgot to protect our food from marauding ponies and lost some tasty items to the Equine Gods. It is also important to have tiki torches and it's a good thing we brought some because otherwise our campsite would have been a fairly dark place indeed. I can't wait for next year's trip! , camping, fun, outdoors, summer, travelling   
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