What could possibly be a more Maryland-y thing to do than a trip to Ocean City and Assateague Island? To the scores of Marylanders who spent their childhoods looking forward to beach weeks in OC, possibly nothing. I wasn’t one of those children, having not grown up here. And my family’s beach loyalties were a bit reluctant when it came to the mid-Atlantic generally, as my husband is from New England. From his perspective, no beach area could ever possibly compare to the denizen of New England childhood nostalgia that is Cape Cod. So our family has never been one to spend a beach week in OC. Aside from a few short weekend jaunts to Chincoteague while in college, I had relatively little exposure to the area.
That was, until my son started playing ice hockey in a Maryland rink (another seemingly out-of-place tradition, but a fabulous and high-quality one, I assure you – there is a lot of excellent ice hockey in this state!). And I was exposed to that fabulous 8-and-under hockey tradition that is the Mite Beach Bash. That’s right, it’s an ice hockey tournament at the beach. The concept almost sounds ridiculous, but it has turned out to be an amazing one – a tradition our whole family looks forward to. Multiple weekends of it are held each year between October and February at the cross-ice sized ice rink contained in the Carousel Hotel in Ocean City. I could go on for awhile about Beach Bash, but as this isn’t a blog about juvenile ice hockey, I’ll pause there.
Suffice it to say that a trip to Ocean City in the wet, cold weather of late February has become a highly anticipated family tradition of ours. And as much as I love watching my son, this year I was determined to see something about Maryland’s Atlantic shore beyond 8-year-olds playing ice hockey. My husband gave me a completely unanticipated and much-needed gift at the end of the tiring tournament – a night in a renovated OC boardwalk hotel ALL TO MYSELF. He took our children home and left me to rest and rejuvenate with an ocean view. And when he got there, he unpacked everything and washed everything too! My husband is a really wonderful guy, isn’t he? Don’t worry, I do a lot for him too.
But back to the point, I had the unique opportunity this weekend to spend some time to myself in this most Maryland-y of places. The weather didn’t cooperate much – it rained nearly the entire weekend. But the ocean, of course, is still beautiful in the rain, especially when one has a dry place to watch it from. I did a lot of work, of course – I had a lot of backed up administrative items to work on. But I did it with a fabulous view. I went on several very deserted walks on the OC boardwalk. (I’m not sure I’ll ever have the opportunity to have the OC boardwalk all to myself again! It was an especially nice treat in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.) I made far too many runs to the Starbucks next to my hotel. And when my introvert self had to check out of the hotel but wasn’t quite ready to emerge from my fabulous cocoon of solitude yet, I decided to go see something wild and wonderful – something I’d always heard about and yet never had the opportunity to truly experience beyond a brief afternoon on the sand: Assateague Island.
Assateague Island is not very far from Ocean City. In fact, I think it took me 15 minutes or less to get there from my OC boardwalk hotel. Like OC, Assateague was relatively deserted. There were a few hikers’ cars in the visitor center’s parking lot, and I joined them, put on my rain gear, and set off to walk across the Verrazano bridge over the Sinepuxent Bay and to the wild Atlantic shores of the island. The weather was initially okay – cloudy but warm enough. But it had been raining off and on for days and there were some very ominous dark clouds above. I ended up being very glad I had thrown on my rain gear just in case.
To walk on a beautiful wild beach in utter solitude is a special experience – one that is hard to rival. Having grown up in the Rocky Mountains, I can say that it is akin to summiting a major mountain and standing at the top all alone, observing directly one’s own smallness in the greater natural world. I didn’t summit a mountain on Assateague, but the raw power of the ocean running into the land (as well as the torrential rain and beating wind that ground freezing wet sand into my body afterwards – did I mention I was really glad I brought that rain gear?) impressed me equally.
I found some great sea treasures on the sand, and though I am typically a big believer in Leave No Trace, I decided to depart from my standard “take only pictures” approach in order to bring some items home for my kids to see and learn about. When I got home that night, we pulled them all out and learned all about them – it was really cool.
I saw some awesome wildlife too, including some ring-necked ducks, four surfers in wetsuits out in the huge but freezing cold waves (crazy humans are wildlife too, right?!?), a family of seals (I watched their bobbing heads swim down the bay for quite awhile!), and my very favorite (and something I had only read about, as there had never been one close enough to view on my college trips to Chincoteague), a wild Assateague pony! The pony was as close as he could safely be, grazing in the grass next to the bike trail as I walked past.
My time on Assateague was short but beautiful. And as lovely as the solitude was, I missed my kiddos and wanted to share its beauty with them. I am already planning a time to bring my family back. Ideally a warmer time with less rain and sand-pelting wind, of course. Though I don’t regret having the weather as my companion, as it came with the unprecedented chance to have a beautiful wild beach all to myself. It’s true that my family’s beach loyalties typically lie elsewhere, but I know now that as Marylanders, we will simply have to find a place for some Assateague and OC traditions.
-That Maryland Mom
Epic Marylanding 