It was my turn, so I slept in the tent with Natalie and Charlie last night. Which is to say, I spent the night in the tent. I didn’t sleep much, with the entire tent violently billowing and convulsing in the wind, with one corner (actually, NOT the lame corner) perpetually caving in from the force of the gusts, and with the poles actually creaking under the strain. I don’t think I can take two more nights of these conditions. I’m actually shocked that the tent didn’t shred to pieces. (The wind speed today was officially reported at the Assateague Island Visitor Center as 20 to 25, gusting to 40 mph.)
I finally drifted off to sleep sometime after dawn. Keith woke me up at 8:15 to tell me that the screen shelter was collapsing, and that we’d have to do something about it. In this wind, with all that fabric flapping everywhere, it was a four-person operation to take that thing down. And it still took us almost an hour.
This is not at all how I imagined our beach-camping expedition. I was exhausted and frustrated and deeply disappointed. Rather than fight the wind while trying to cook and serve breakfast, we piled in the van and headed to Ocean City, about 10 miles north, in search of a diner and some shelter from the wind. And along the way, Keith and I discussed our options. The gusty conditions are just too grueling; we could pack up the campsite and head to a motel. We could leave the Assateague area altogether and head into D.C. early. Or, we could tough it out and stay.
Well, Ocean City depressed me even more. From what we saw, it’s not much more than a mess of strip malls, fast-food joints and traffic. I didn’t want to move into a motel in Ocean City for the next night or two. I’d claw my own eyes out.
After a short stack of pancakes and several cups of strong coffee, I was able to rally, and we decided to tough it out. We returned to our campsite after breakfast to find that most of our neighbors (the ones in tents, at least) had packed up and abandoned camp. Only the trailers and RVs are left. Our tent -- the one with the broken pole -- is still standing, believe it or not. So we tightened everything down and took off for the visitor’s center, where we lingered -- indoors, out of the wind -- for an especially long time, perusing the exhibits and working on Junior Ranger badges.
In the afternoon, we look a few short nature walks on the other -- protected -- side of the island and watched some local guys catch crabs off the docks. Then we came back to the beach where we watched about a half-dozen intrepid kite surfers while the kids played in the surf until their lips turned blue.
For dinner, we headed up the road to a place called Assateague Crab House for an authentic Chesapeake Bay meal. Keith had an entire lobster as well as three blue crabs, a half-dozen clams and 1/4 pound of shrimp along with cole slaw and corn. He is not feeling especially proud of that right now.
We decided to put the kids to bed in the van tonight. It’s just too hard to sleep in the tent with all that flapping and racket. So we put all the gear into the tent, and put the seats down in the van to make room for the kids’ sleeping bags. I hope they’ll get some better sleep in there tonight. I went into the tent to change clothes, and practically passed out from vertigo; with the whole structure buckling and thrashing around me, I felt like I was in a carnival fun-house.
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