Our Winter Getaway

Well it’s been a while since I posted to this blog.  Winters in New England do not lend themselves to camping and so far, we have had enough snow to keep the pop-up parked.

Now that we have had time to sit back and assess our annual trip to Assateague National Seashore it is time to compare the NationalSeashore to the State Park.  As I mentioned in previous posts, the government shutdown caused us to shift our plans.  The National Seashore, as a function of the government, was closed by the shutdown.  However, Maryland’s state park, which is also on the island, remained open.  We were fortunate enough to shift our reservations and only had to shorten the trip by one day.  In comparing the two facilities, we would choose the National Seashore.  Assateague National Seashore has two sides to camp on – ocean side and bay side.  The state park is only an ocean side facility.  At the National Seashore we prefer the bay side sites since we like to canoe the bay.  Also the wind tends to get sand everywhere when you are on the beach side.  The one downside to the bay side is the little grass burrs.  They attach to your shoes and then stick to your carpet.  One barefoot trip to the bathroom and you realize they are there!  We minimize their effect by pulling up the rugs in the rig for the trip.

The state park section has amenities that the national seashore does not.  The state park has loops with electrical power, a camp store with a limited menu diner and WiFi.  This leads to a slightly higher rate for the state park.  Unfortunately, during our stay the camp store / diner had very limited hours.

For these reasons we will move our vacation to earlier in the year to ensure another government shutdown won’t affect us being at the National Seashore.

We are now on our winter getaway.  Our mutual Christmas gift to each other are a long weekend at Fourth Cliff.  Fourth Cliff is a small Air Force RV and recreation complex located in the Hummarock section of Marshfield, Ma.  The complex is operated by Hanscomb Air Force Base.  This is a nice getaway for us.  It is close to both Boston and Cape Cod.  There are many nice small towns in the area.  We have visited Hull, Natick, Plymouth, Bourne, Falmouth and many other nice towns.  While it is the off season and many of the businesses are closed, the ones that remain open are always interesting.  I love the experience of stepping out onto a balcony first ting in the morning, coffee in hand and listening to the surf.  For me it doesn’t get more relaxing than that. 

The view from my balcony.

  Hard to believe I’m looking forward to wintering over in Arizona.  No surf sounds there!

Well this is it until the Springfield RV show at the Big E  Stay tuned kids!

How Can It Be This Wet Inside?

We rode out the storm!  It must have been a hell of a storm because the rumor floating through the campground is that The Weather Channel was in the area that night – “…and you know it has to be a good storm to get The Weather Channel here!”!

I had set up the camper by cracking the windows on the side the wind was coming in at and opening windows on the other side.  If I could keep an air flow path there would be less air pressure to rock the trailer.  The plan worked fairly well!  There were two unplanned results.  First the gusting of the wind caused the zipper on the back-bunk window to work open the window more than intended.  This caused the mattress in that bunk to get soaked.  The second was that rain with a 40 mile per hour gust goes everywhere!  We got water under a bunk end flap and than the bed sheet to wicked moisture up into our bunk – not bad but the mattress corner got pretty wet from it.

By the time we woke up the wind had subsided – the rain was still with us though.  We gathered up the stuff we needed to get dry and headed to the Laundromat near the Food Lon.  We pull into the lot to find the place closed.   A quick run to Dunkin Donuts for coffee and the clerk tells us that there is one off of 8^th street bay side in Ocean City..  We head to Ocean City and make our way through the bayside part of town to find the water level inches from cresting the docks and several streets impassable because of flooding.  Explains what brought The Weather Channel out.  We do find the Laundromat and I get to spend 30 minutes watching hot rods go past!

Weathering the Storm

Nobody slept last night.  We had heavy winds all night.  All we heard was the awning poles slapping onto the tarmac. Once everyone was up and we got Axel out to do his business we made plans to deal with the weather.  Because safety comes first you have to assess the risk of staying in the camper.  Since I have a popup

I am not as sturdy as other camping rigs.  Bunk ends have been known to be torn out by the wind.  Even though the National Seashore is closed there really are not a lot of people in the State Park in the middle of the week.  We talked with the few neighbors we had and most were making plans to leave.  The storm was going to last a couple of days and could force closures of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel or the Bay Bridge.  So for most of our neighbors it was a choice of heading home early or getting stranded by bridge closure.

We headed to the camp store to check out the forecast at weather.com.  The prediction was for rain, heavy at times with winds in the high 20 mile-per-hour range.  Lori and I decided we could deal with this if we storm proofed a little bit.  We got the awning stowed and put away anything that would get blown into another camp site.  I charged batteries and computers and then covered the generator.

After our storm preparations were done the Turcotts showed up wanting to venture into the National Seashore.  We headed to the beach to take advantage of the water front access to National. The surf was huge and a storm surge had put the tide almost up to the dunes.  Bud had been told by a fisherman that this was still low tide.  Not wanting to get stranded by tide cycles we decided to abandon the adventure.  The Turcotts to play cards and me to take a nap.

Finding Sand Art

Tuesday was a busy day – not my typical vacation day.  It was up and make coffee.  Then I took Axel for his walk and made breakfast.  Next I was off to fill my potable water tank.  Since I have a popup camper I have invested in a 45 gallon water bladder to put in the roof of my pickup so I can transport water from the water station to my camper.  Gravity than fills my potable water tank.  The pickup on the pump in my camper’s 40 gallon tank starts at about the five gallon level in the potable water tank.  Since the bladder holds 45 gallons there is always some left over.  If I cannot find a camper next to me who needs to top off I just dump the excess.

After topping off the water we were off to Ocean City, Md. Last year when we were here we just drove around on the Friday before Columbus Day.  Since Columbus Day weekend is the hot rod show there is always plenty to see.  I was surprised to see how many hot-rodders show up early to make a week of the event.  Many of the side streets in town had car trailers parked on them.  This is because these areas offer free parking.  Most lots in Ocean City are $20 per day and the hotels will only give you one spot per room.  So there is always a demand for free parking spots on the weekend.  We also took a walk on the boardwalk.  This time of year we find about half of the boardwalk vendors closed.  There is still a good crowd on nice days so the vendors that stay open do a fair business.   An artist had taken the time to do some sand sculpting on the beach.. You never know what you will find when you adventure beyond your door.

 The rest of the day was pretty routine – cooking – eating – sitting by the fire.Back in vacation mode!

Settling in

Well Monday is the day I head to Croppers Fuel to fill up on ethanol free fuel.  Ethanol is not good for the carburetors on small engines.  In Connecticut you cannot get bulk ethanol free fuel.  Typically you have to by racing fuel at $18 per gallon.  Here I can get ethanol free fuel at a pump for $3.89. I actually look forward to the stop at Croppers because it really reflects the mentality on the Delmarva Peninsula -   everything is friendly and laid back.  

Coming back I stopped to get Lori a Dunkin Donut coffee and I happened to notice the sign reading delmarvaDD.com.  Around here they are their own little piece of civilization.  They are not Delaware, Maryland, or Virginia – they are Delmarva and the attitude is everywhere from the Dunkin Donut sign to the radio stations.

Since I had my friend Bud Turcott with me on the trip to Croppers I decided to show him where the cheapest firewood vendor was.  After all he just got a guided tour of the area.  We loaded up on enough wood to last the rest of the week.  Who knew it would rain!  Since we now have an excess it looks like we will be paying it forward to those whowill occupy our site when we leave.

Every time I’m here I figure out what a little more about the area.  We always leave here on Columbus Day weekend.  Columbus Day is the weekend when a big hot rod show happens in Ocean City, Md .  As I was giving Bud the ten-cent tour around the Berlin area I saw several racing boats on trailers leaving Ocean City.  It is unfortunate because next year it looks like we will be shifting this trip to early April and I won’t get to investigate this more.

The Assateague State Park claims to have wifi capability at the camp store.  I tried several times and could not make a connection.  To check email and post Monday’s blog we had to go back out to Berlin and stop at Panera Bread for their French Onion Soup and their very reliable wifi connection.