Assateague Island -- Hiking

In celebration of Mike's and his best friend Josh's birthdays, we went on a camping excursion to the shores of Eastern Maryland. The Assateague Island area to be exact. We packed up all of our gear (and the kitchen sink Mike likes to joke -- I tend to pack anything that I think we may possibly need) and we headed out early on Friday morning. We spent the day on Friday, traveling. unpacking, and setting everything up at the camp site. Then we got up Saturday morning, and after a delicious breakfast, we set out for our hiking trip.

The weather was gorgeous that day -- there was a nice breeze coming in off of the Atlantic and the humidity was low. The only thing that was bothersome were the mosquitos. And these weren't your ordinary, run-of-the-mill mosquitos. These mosquitos were large MUTANT mosquitos. Like the size of tarantulas with wings. Thankfully the bug repellent was potent enough that the mosquitos didn't want to bother with us, and we escaped with very few bites. We saw some critters along the way too -- the famous wild horses of Assateague (they are such beautiful and shaggy creatures), colorful birds, and some snakes. Yes, that's right... SNAKES. We found one slithering around the sand dunes near the bridge we were walking on (Mike went down to check it out -- you'll see him looking at one on the ground in the photos below). And then not two minutes later when we were back on the path again, Mike almost stepped on one. Thankfully Catelyn was up high enough on daddy's back that momma didn't stress out too much :) We had to step carefully and keep our eyes peeled for more of our slithery friends.

The hike was fun and educational and relatively uneventful (as far as creepy crawlies go). Assateague is a gorgeous piece of our state's history and is a location we are definitely going to go back to in the future. Camping trip, anyone?