Tripped up to Assateague last Saturday for what was to be a week of camping at the beautiful Assateague Island National Seashore. Arrived to find the camping area full of happy families with children riding their bicycles up and down the road. Everyone’s happy as a clam in a salt marsh….which they have by the way.

Well….within 24 hours there was a massive invasion of salt marsh mosquitoes that chased away almost every camper in the bayside area. A few of us toughed it out over the next several days, but it was pretty challenging.

The incredible thing about this particular mosquito is its unrelenting activity throughout the day. Most mosquitoes are pretty active in the early morning and particularly late evenings for about an hour or so. At least that has been my experience. Well, not the salt marsh mosquito. This little bugger stays up all day long. And I’m not talking about the occasional unit landing on your leg with a behind the calf surprise attack. I’m talking 30-40 beasts swarming you as soon as you exit a tent or screen house. Deep Woods Off helped a lot, but quickly became ineffective.

It was no question why most of the campers left as most had no screen house. But as a frequenter of buggy coastal National Parks, where there is no insect control spraying, I’m pretty up on the necessity of the screen house and it is a staple of the car camping venture now. Am I ever glad I had one on this trip.

All in all the trip was great, even though a bit shorter than expected. The horses were everywhere but the beach so I didn’t shoot them this trip. Did take a well led canoe tour of the bay (also surprisingly skeeterless) and that was pretty cool. The guide was an Assateague veteran and I had a lot of fun on that…

So all in all, got a lot of sun and a little more car trippin’ up the coast of Delaware and MD to Bethany and Rehobeth which are pretty cool little costal towns. I really liked Bethany which has a small village appeal and that northern east coast charm.

Cheers