Assateague and the Arts

Assateague is always a fun place to visit if its mosquito and biting fly season.  I met a gentleman from Tennessee who camped there with his family a few years ago.  He said he'd never experienced a mosquito attack while cruising on his bicycle.  But now it's mid March so we have a bit of time to play around there before the bugs come out en masse.  

We have been there twice in the last week, once to take a visiting family member to see the ponies and the vastness of the ocean.  Not that he'd never seen ponies on a beach.  He'd been to the Outer Banks in North Carolina and he'd seen the ocean many times.  He grew up in Connecticut.  But now he lives in New Hampshire.  And since he was visiting us, we wanted to show him around our stomping grounds.  

But I said we visited twice in the last week.  We went back to camp a night and see the sunrise.  Dave put the camper on the truck, got both all cleaned up and cleaned out and we packed a few items like food and water, binoculars and cameras, varied clothing items to deal with a low 40's night and low 60's day, both windy on the ocean which always means more layers than you may anticipate. 

We were only going to stay a day one night and most of the day. Its an hour and a half drive from our house.  We were going to catch the Frida movie (Exhibition on Screen (TM) - Frida Kahlo at the Cinema Art Theater in Rehobeth Beach, on the way.  We've been on a Frida kick since visiting (and joining) the Biggs Museum of Art when they had the Frida show "Through the Lens" of Nickolas Muray, the exhibition of his photographs of Frida but also "Unmasking Culture: An examination of the Ritual Masks of Mexico" and an exhibition of children's drawings of Frida from local schools.  We loved all of it.  I am also reading Frida by Barbara Mudjica.  It's a novel based on Frida's life from the perspective of her little sister who had the affair with Diego Rivera, Frida's husband.  And...we also recently saw the movie,  Frida, a film by Julie Taymar, on DVD, loaned to us by our son and his wife who are also Frida fans.   

So where was I?  Yes.  I was looking forward to yet another great day of art, history and now adding some nature into the day.  And this continues the start of a whole week of art and nature.  We started the week off by seeing the matinee, Victor/Victoria, at the Clear Space Theater in Rehobeth Beach on Sunday.  And btw, it was very well done we thought, and we are so excited to see more live theater there. We later picked up a copy of the 1982 Julie Andrews movie, Victor/Victoria, from the Dover Public Library and totally loved that too.  I don't know how I'd missed seeing it after all these years.  The instrumental music, the singing, the jokes and comments about gay life and straight prejudice and ignorance...it was way before it's time.  Or it was time and was time hundreds of years ago but I think it was bravery and truth to power in 1982.

So back to Assateague.  I wanted to go camp there to be right on the beach for the sunrise, especially if we could time it for a morning where there was some partial cloud cover.  That makes the best sunrises and sunsets in my opinion.  But I also wanted to do a long walk on the beach to see what I could find and also just for exercise.  I wanted this long walk to be done before tourist season.  Part of my motivation was driven, too, by a local television news spotlight by Jimmy Hoppa on the 1950's effort to develop what now is Assateague National Seashore but what was at the time supposed to be the beginning of a second Ocean City of sorts, that would be called Ocean Beach.  A "perfect storm" put the kibash on it though it was already struggling with flooding and shifting sands.  At that time there was also no such thing as flood insurance.  Jimmy Hoppa's spotlight on Assateague explained to us why last year when we'd hiked around Assateague we saw the remains of an asphalt highway, climbing up and down the washed out sections of it, and at that time, wandering about it's history.  So now we know and wanted to go back just to see it all from the perspective of what it might have been but fortunately isn't.  

But we didn't stay.  We got set up at a camp site, coming in a day before reservations were required, and coming in after hours so we could just pick an empty site not reserved according to the sheet posted at the Ranger Station.  We'd have had to return the next day before 10:00 to pay for the site.  Anyway, we parked (there are no hookups) so it didn't take any time, and we crawled into the camper and opened a bottle of red wine and sat to chat and just look out the windows at the sand and approaching sunset on the bay side.  We had about an hour before sunset so we decided to take a quick walk on the beach.  That's what decided our early departure.  The beach is a groomed beach and I guess I knew that from before, but had just hoped for more interesting things to find besides crushed shells and sand.  The closest beach to our house is Slaughter Beach and we love it because it's not a groomed beach.  It's funky.  And funky is interesting to us.  There's lots of nature washed up with each tide.  And also washed up with each tide is a bit of trash which is sometimes unsightly but also sometimes very interesting.  

So after walking only about five minutes on the beach (windy and cold, too) we turned back towards the camper.  I expressed my disappointment at the beach.  Dave quipped that if we were done we could just go home and belly up at a bar somewhere along the way for a drink.  Yes, I said.  We could go home and sleep in our own bed and read a book or watch a movie and just get up early and go to Slaughter Beach to watch the sunrise, which we could do, actually, any day.  

So I don't know why I got the wild hair to go to Assateague to camp.  Maybe if some ponies wandered into the camping area we might have been charmed and stayed.  There was plenty evidence on the ground that they frequented the campsites.   

So we stowed our stuff again, put away the barely sipped wine, and jumped back in the truck, turned on the audio book we'd been listening to (Elizabeth George, Something to Hide which takes the Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley series on a spin with London's Nigerian community and FGM or female genital mutilation).  

On the way home we stopped at one of the Matt's Fish Camps to have a drink and a couple appetizers.  We'd seen the Matt's Fish Camp restaurants strung along the coast but had not yet visited one.  They are upscale in a fun contrast to the name and first impression of the nondescript fishing shack outward appearance of the building.  

When we got home we quickly and fully unpacked as we do with each trip we take. We work together and get it done so it's not hanging over our heads as a dread and we don't have the irritation of getting ready for bed and remembering our toiletries are still in the camper.  

So here's some picture of when the ponies were out and about last week when we visited Assateague with Dave's brother from New Hampshire. 

The lighter colored pony is getting ready to nip the dark brown one on the hiney. And, below, the dark brown pony turns around and says, "Cut it out".  

The Sika deer on Assateague were kind enough to show themselves while we visited last week with Dave's brother.  They are native to eastern Asia and were brought here in the 1920's but I don't know the details yet.  They have lots of different sounds that they make, at least ten now known.  That would be fun to hear.  I have heard deer grunts before and am always surprised and delighted since they seem so silent and serene.  

Mallards are so common that I think we sometimes don't get excited about seeing them.  But the beautiful teal color of the head and neck on the males always delights me.  And that yellow bill and orange feet are fun too.  

So here are the two brothers at Assateague last week.  

And here they are on Slaughter Beach earlier that day.  It was cold and windy so we didn't walk outside too much either day.