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!