![]() Snaking through the dense chaparral, they bisect the antiquated roadway en route to the coast. The smoothed trenches of critter byways emerge from westward stands of pines. Here, the sand is everywhere marked by animal tracks. Soon, I am congratulating my ingenuity with a toast of whisky. Hop-scotching or otherwise, the debris offers vastly improved footing. Disappearing among the brush and dwarf pine, they emerge five, 10, even 20 steps away. Like remnants from some forgotten apocalypse, long room-sized chunks of asphalt rise craggy and broken through the sand. Trudging back over the dunes, I weave my way through the scrub-grass to the ruins of an old road. Meanwhile, I brainstorm a new stratagem for walking … Smearing the cheese across the bread with my pocket knife, I indulge a deliciously inappropriate treat. Inspired, I fish a fresh baguette and brie from my pack. Plopping down on the beach, I watch gangs of industrious plover, sandpiper and sanderling scamper along the hissing fringes of the surf, diligently combing the shoreline for food. The bugs will eat us alive and we will look like a buffoon.” Within a mile, I begin to doubt my so-called exemplary physical prowess. With the camp stove, cookware, snacks, layers of clothing, tent, sleeping bag, sleeping mat, journal, camera, book, headlamp, sunscreen, bug repellant, lunchbag (for meat and cheese), cigars-also to repel bugs-bottle of saké and two pints of whisky, I’m toting nearly 50 pounds of gear.Īmplified by the weight, the slippery-sand-effect makes walking much harder than anticipated. The only freshwater on Assateague is found in puddles, so, to be safe, I’ve packed nearly 20 pounds of H2O (about 2.5 gallons). Heading south down the beach, the sand gives way beneath my boots, causing my feet to slide toward the surf with each step. Aside from the rangers and my fiancée, I’ve seen no one at all. Regaining my balance, I set out over the dunes toward the ocean. “Compared to most mid-30s writer types, you are in excellent shape.” “Be confident,” I tell myself, groaning under the unexpected weight. Hoisting my ridiculously heavy backpack, it takes a moment to get stabilized. It’s the end of April, and the morning air is cool, fresh, crisp with salt. I watch the vehicle disappear behind the ranger station, it’s engine fading then lost to the crash of waves. Shaking her head, she puts the station wagon in drive and calls through the window: “Drink lots of water. “Are you truly prepared to spend the rest of your life regretting missing out on this awesomeness?” “But honey, think of the adventure,” I plead. As she drops me off at the shore-fronting campground registration center marking the entry to Assateague Island State Park, I try one last time. Four years later, when my girlfriend-now fiancée-and I return to Assateague, she refuses to humor any notion of a long-distance hike, much less camping in the backcountry. With a solemn nod and a spoonful of butterscotch ice cream, I vowed my revenge: Mother nature had made a fool of me despite my girlfriend’s asseverations of “never again,” I would return at precisely the right moment and hike the entire 37.28-mile-long island. ‘If you wanna’ camp on Assateague during the big Atlantic Flyway migration,’ she confided, ‘you gotta’ get here just as the birds arrive, before the warm weather comes and hatches out all the bugs.’ There, the teenaged clerk-a precocious redhead that, at first, reveled in my condition, then took pity when I explained the destruction of my great romantic plan-alerted me to the fatal error of many a “goofy tourist” like myself. That night I was sulking in a Berlin ice-cream parlor. Waking from her nap, my girlfriend stretched and asked, with a kittenish yawn,“What’d I miss?” Checking the mirror, my face looked like it’d been struck by rapid-onset measles. ![]() With the composure of a Disney toon with his ass on fire, I spluttered about, swatting the air, slapping my face, arms and thighs.īy the time I’d wrenched open the door and flung myself into the car I was mutilated. Before I could stammer ‘The hell?’ I was cut short by what, in a stroke of horror, I realized were flies-yes, flies-kamikazeing my throat. A swarm of thrumming darkness buzzed through my visual spectrum. Stepping out of the car, I set about the business of removing our tent from the trunk.īut something was going wrong. The drive had lulled my girlfriend to sleep. However, at the time, I was unaware of Assateague’s bugs.Īfter a glorious dinner-stay-breakfast-lunch-dinner run at Berlin’s beautifully restored Hotel Atlantic-the town was that cool, the food that good-I drove 10 miles to the national park, paid our entry fees and proceeded to a lonely oceanfront campsite.
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