Our trips to Assateague Island are the ones I remember the most. It’s one place that I want to take my family. We would go every fall after school had started. My mom would get my work for the week and I would work on it in the evenings. When I got older (maybe around 4th grade) and there was too much school work, we would go right after school got out in June.
The best part about it was camping yards from the beach! I remember playing on the beach which was less crowded because it was later in the season (although I don’t remember it ever being very crowded). One time we camped in a site that had a path to the playground. We wrote down the number and my dad would request it every year after that. My brother and I loved that we could run down the path to the playground. It was all primitive camping – no water, no electric. We would fill up with water on the way in and then at some point during the week, we would have to unhook to dump the gray & black tanks and get more water.
I remember going crabbing at the Ferry Landing. I don’t know that we caught enough to feed the four of us very often, but when we did, mmmmmm!! They were tasty! I also remember crabbing on an island and the tide came up and the foot bridge that we crossed was underwater. I think my mom and brother had gone back to the camper and I stayed with my dad to crab some more. Anyway, I was pretty surprised that the bridge was gone. I’m guessing he carried me back…I don’t remember that part.
I do remember the mosquitoes! One of the parks sprayed for mosquitoes and one didn’t. They were bad either way and we always had bug spray and sunscreen on.
I remember that we had mice one year. There must’ve been a nest in one of the storage compartments under the benches in the back. Those benches converted to a bed that my parents used. Poor Mom discovered the mice – one of them ran across her pillow in the night! We set traps and I think we caught 5 total.
Feeding the seagulls was always fun too. If we had stale bread (or probably some that wasn’t stale) or leftover pancakes, we fed it to the seagulls. I remember the ponies and even though they were supposedly mean, I don’t remember them ever bothering us.
Something I didn’t know anything about as a kid was the cost. When we first started going to Assateague Island it was $2.50/night for a primitive site (that’s all they had). The last time we went (in 1988) it was $15/night for a primitive site. Now at Assateague Island, the National Park is $20/night ($16 in the off season) for primitive sites and the State Park is $30/night (primitive) or $40/night (electrical).
What’s your favorite childhood memory?
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