Day 14 -- to Annapolis

Yep. Still incredibly windy.

We packed up camp this morning, but hung around Assateague until mid-afternoon. The kids wanted to body surf at the beach one more time. It’s so much fun watching Clare, especially, skip and dance in the giant waves with pure, unabashed glee. I love it.

From there we headed to the bay side of the island for a ranger talk on clamming. We had the opportunity to wade into the marsh looking for clams buried in the mud -- a task that Natalie took on with keen interest. She didn’t mind wading through the muck at all, and reveled in digging through it with her hands in search of clams. (She came up with only an empty shell, unfortunately.)

We stayed on for another ranger talk about crabbing, and then tried our hands at catching blue crabs off the dock with a piece of raw chicken neck. It takes a lot of patience, but sure enough, Charlie caught one! The minimum size has to be 5 inches, and this one was a keeper. But we threw it back, anyway.

(You can tell that it's a male because ... God, Keith is censoring this, too ... because of the "Washington Monument" on its apron.)

After that, we settled back into the car for the drive to Annapolis. We decided that we’d get as close as we could to the city, stay the night in a motel, and then spend tomorrow exploring the area before heading on to D.C.

We got about two exits into Annapolis when we spotted a Holiday Inn and pulled off, only to discover that that particular hotel had no vacancies. And the desk clerk reported that most of the other hotels in the area were booked, too. Keith started to panic, worrying that we’d be sleeping in a Wal-Mart parking lot if we didn’t find a place quickly. He made a few calls and booked a room at the first hotel that had availability, which was 20 miles in the other direction. So, we doubled back.

And now we’re all spread out in a luxuriously roomy waterfront suite in a Hilton Garden Inn on the Kent Narrows, on the eastern side of Chesapeake Bay. I mean, this suite has a foyer. Before dinner, we had the chance to shower away four days' worth of sand and grime -- and now we look and smell like real people again.

We ate at the beachside tiki lounge next door, and left just as the band was getting started. Now the party is really hopping. We can tell because our balcony directly overlooks the revelry, and it’s like covers of Black Eyed Peas songs are being piped directly into our room.