Wild Horses Couldn't Stop Me

Last weekend, I went camping in Assateague National Seashore with H and friends. Ten people went in all, and each small subset of people were friends with H in a different way (work colleagues, high school friends, college friends) though we didn't know each other. That's why it's funny that she got all turned around and arrived at the campsite last.

I picked up my friend JSG in a rented car and we drove down. Our drive was unremarkable. Manhattan never gives up anyone without a fight, but we didn't hit terrible traffic leaving the city. We just had to make multiple stops for different things. We actually hit no traffic all the way down to Maryland and even had the foresight to buy a map so we wouldn't get horribly lost. Yay!

Assateague National Park is known for the two groups of wild horses that run free along the beaches. When it's cool, they stay up in the marshes but since it was hot, they were down along the beach a lot. In the middle of the night on Friday, we heard loud pony noises coming from our camp and one lone pony came pounding through. Luckily they did not disturb anything - apparently the ponies are mean and destructive. Even though they look cute and cuddly. Who'd a thunk it.
We spent most of Saturday laying around on the beach, reading our books, pony watching and beer drinking. It was an excellent day.

There were only two downsides to the entire trip. The first were the mosquitoes. HOLY. CRAP. It must be because the seashore backs up onto a marsh, but they were huge and aggressive and apparently immune to 40% Deet bug spray. I'm sure I when I get cancer in 10 years, I'll be able to trace it back to the all of the chemicals that leeched into my skin on this trip. I must be extra tasty, because when I came back I counted 53 mosquito bits on ONE LEG ALONE. Srsly, they aren't that bad in Africa. AFRICA. The other is that JSG convinced me that the best way to get back into the city was not to go over the George Washington Bridge, but to take the Goethals bridge and the Verrazano Bridge since she lives in Queens and we needed to stop there first. TWO AND A HALF HOURS after we got off at the Goethals Bridge exit, we got back to her place. That's the worst traffic getting into the city that I've ever had to sit in. Holy crap.