One Last Trip to the Beach

I was feeling kind of sad that my schedule hadn't allowed me to go to the beach one last time to say goodbye to the ocean and my ponies for the winter. But then we had that warm spell last weekend that extended into Monday, and to top it off, my fortune cookie on Saturday had the following message inside:

So it was pretty much a done deal that we would take Monday off. I worked really hard on Sunday, caulking and painting and mowing the grass one last time. I discovered that the mulching attachment on the mower does a fantastic job of sucking up leaves if you leave the bag on.

We headed out so early that the fields on Rt 198 still had their morning mist.

We had planned a little side trip to the Oxford-Bellvue Ferry because I really wanted to take a boat ride in my car, but they only run on weekends starting in November. But that's the dock back there behind the tree. I wonder if that tree is a descendant of the famous Wye Oak?

There was a singing seagull hanging out on one of the poles near the dock.

The water there was kind of oily, probably from the boats, but it made an interesting background for these leaves.

This giant red ball was decorating the gate post at the end of someone's driveway near the ferry dock.

When we saw this persimmon tree, Doug insisted that we stop and have a taste. The fruit tasted like a mixture of peach, apricot, and mango, with a whole lot of nutmeg added. Doug said this was a highly unusual persimmon in that it had virtually no puckeriness. It was pretty good. I was surprised that he didn't pick a bunch of them to bring home.

We saw this lovely sweetgum tree. I think fall is farther along in DC than it is on the Eastern shore.

The sweetgum tree had these balls hanging from it.

After we passed this sunny sorghum field, we stopped at the St. Michaels Perk for breakfast before hitting the highway once again.

Finally we arrived at Assateague. By then the temperature had risen to right around 70 degrees. Everything looked so clean and fresh. I've never seen the horses manes look so white. I guess they had gotten a lot of rain recently.

We had the beach practically all to ourselves. We were there from noon until about 3:00. It felt wonderful to be in that lovely light and to breathe that fresh ocean air.

I don't usually have very much to do with seagulls because one pooped on my head at Rehoboth one time. But on Monday there weren't too many around, so I decided to make friends with this one. He was very clean and white.

If you've never seen seagull feet closeup, now's your big chance!

I decided to entertain myself by taking a video of the seagull. Of course he poops a little bit right at the end of it. That's what I'm talking about!