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Mid-Atlantic Vacation Blog
Overall, the kayak trip was very calm as there was no current, no waves, and no rocks. We kayaked through an area described as salt marshes, an area of water near an ocean and with little grassy islands interspersed. It was definitely different from whitewater rafting, but we did have to navigate through a few narrow areas:
On our tour, we saw quite a bit of wildlife that was mostly too far away for decent pictures from a kayak, or was no longer "life", like these horseshoe crabs:
We saw birds like herons, ospreys, egrets, and tons of sea gulls. We also saw an couple of bald eagle's nests, but the residents weren't home. We also saw mussels, jellyfish, and the remains of several horseshoe crabs (which we learned are not actually crabs). And the wind was still present, but it wasn't as much of a factor except for blowing water on us as it dripped off the ends of the paddles.
After finishing our kayak tour around noon, we thought we would work in a little shopping and some lunch in the three mile trip back to our hotel before heading back to Assateague Island National Seashore, but while shopping, it started to rain and traffic was insanely slow, so after a couple of shopping stops, we inched back to our hotel/movie theater (at about 2:00) and gave up driving for the day. (And since it was raining and our hotel shares the movie theater parking lot and everyone was beating the rain by going to the movies, we had to park somewhere closer to the ocean than our hotel.) But that doesn't mean that we stayed in. Ocean City has a bus that runs down the one street and one comes by every 5 to 7 minutes and it only costs two dollars per person to ride it all day, so we took the bus down to the boardwalk area:
The boardwalk area looks cool and has lots of shops, food, and there are carnival rides. We got some food ($$$) and since none of the places on the boardwalk accept credit cards (although there are plenty of ATMs), we pretty much depleted our remaining cash (along with our energy) on lunch. We did look in some of the shops and walked most of the length of the boardwalk and it felt like a chase scene in a cartoon. If you ever saw cartoons like Tom and Jerry and when Tom was chasing Jerry, it looks like they run past the same background over and over (e.g., a doorway, then a table, then a doorway, then a table, then a doorway, etc.). On the Ocean City Boardwalk, there is a Sunsations store, a Candy Kitchen, a Dumser's Ice Cream, a bar & grill, a Sunsations, a Candy Kitchen, a Sunsations, a Dumsers, a bar & grill, and you get the idea. We got back to the main street and back on the bus before we got dizzy seeing the same stores spin by.
So the weather improved, but we didn't make it back to the national park, so the only view we got of Assateague Island was from the Ocean City inlet into Assawoman Bay past the end of the boardwalk:
After resting in our hotel room for a while, we took the bus to Bull on the Beach for dinner. We had it timed very well to finish dinner, do a little shopping and get dessert and get back to our hotel for prime viewing of the Fifth of July fireworks. Our dinner and dessert was good, but while we were eating our sundaes, it started to pour down rain, and our bus stop (unsheltered) was across the street and half a block away. We patiently waited out the rain and only got a little wet and made it back just in time to see the fireworks start as we were walking back to the hotel (they were being launched about a half mile away from our hotel over Assawoman Bay). We got to the pool area just in time to see most of the show and attempt to get some pictures:
Tomorrow, I am hopeful of not spending too much time here in Ocean City, but since I intend to take our car back home with us, we probably won't have much choice. If we have time and energy, we may go back to Assateague to walk one more trail for one last chance to see the horses, or we may try to get to Hagerstown early to indulge one of Brooke new favorite hobbies: outlet malls (especially those with Eddie Bauers, like the one in Hagerstown). We have about four hours of driving to get there (according to MapQuest) but a lot of side roads to take (there are no interstates near here) so even though we'll head towards home, our adventure seems likely to continue.
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