Last month we took a long weekend trip to Assateague Island. As destinations go, it was beautiful. As weather goes, it was awful!
Our first stop upon arriving was the Walmart parking lot. We were early, several hours early. That was by design. With the winds picking up as we approached check in time, we figured, it would be better to be early. At about 12:30 we decided to head in and see if they would let us in considering the weather. It was now a sideways downpour. No luck. They sent us off to park in the Maryland National Seashore.
Finally, we are through the gate! We go into the park, to the ranger’s station to check in. (Remember, sideways downpour.) I try the door and it is locked. What?
A voice comes from a window to the side. It is more of a bank teller’s window than your typical flimsy covid screen (your tax dollars at work). Apparently, they still had state covid regulations to follow. So, I stood in the driving rain and checked us in.
We got to the campsite, Sue got the trailer backed in and I went to do the unhitching, leveling and stabilizing. By the time I was done, I was completely soaked through. I really need some rain gear, even if it is just so that it sits unused. I climbed up into Lola and right into the bathroom. I pulled my clothes off and tossed them in the shower. They were still damp when we got home.
That evening, we saw some water on the floor. It was coming in through the slide. Just pouring in. We got these pictures in the morning. I have all kinds of problems with the fact that you can see daylight through where there are supposed to be seals.
It was a very grey weekend.
But, that didn’t stop us from making several stops over the weekend:
Sinepuxent Brewing Company – They has a few solid beers. Huge outdoor area where they typically have live music. No food.
Seacrets Distilling – Really cool building. The building itself is new, but the many architectural features are old and they all have a story. (Whether the stories are true or not is debatable)
As you enter they give you a time card so you can “punch-in.” Then after stories about where the front door came from and where all of the other bits and pieces came from you head to the elevator.
The elevator takes you upstairs to, of all places a storage room. We make a right turn into the bottle cleaning room. While in the cleaning room our guide was bragging about how they only used fresh fruits to flavor their spirits. I turned around and took this picture immediately after that statement. While Oregon Fruit does make some amazing fruit purees, it is really pushing it to call them “Fresh Fruit.”
Next up was the mill room. All pretty standard brewery stuff, except for the lights. They had explosion proof fluorescent lights in the mill room. They looked super cool, like they were from the 1940’s.
You need explosion proof lighting where you are cracking grain. As any farmer will tell you, grain dust is quite explosive. What you don’t need is to spend thousands of dollars on antique explosion proof lighting.
We continued on to the actual still room. Lots of stainless steel, blah, blah, blah. That stuff is all the same.
After that we wandered through the lab. The neatest thing were the seats at the workbench. They folded up under the table. They are allegedly from Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park laboratory.
After that we were off to the “Pharmacy.” Sue had to go in the phone booth and talk to a guy asking for a prescription for her “headache.” The prescription was (obviously) for ethanol.
We went into the “Pharmacy” and it was a well appointed bar that look like it was right out of the 1920’s
Of course they had an original alcohol prescription from 1927, because… of course they do and they gave us personalized prescriptions before we could get our samples.
We ended up buying a couple of bottles. One was an orange vodka. The other was a Blue Mountain Coffee Rum. Both were very good. Oh! On the way out is their delivery truck.
Evolution Craft Brewing – I was unimpressed with the experience. The beers were OK, and we didn’t eat, but there was food available.
Tall Tales Taphouse – This place was a bust. They have a brewery onsite, but they weren’t brewing their own beer right now because the state of Maryland was dragging it’s feet renewing their license. At least that was the story.
Burnish Beer Company – Great food! Good beer. I didn’t get any pictures because we were way too hungry. Sorry.
But here’s the reason you all are here… Horses!
The above picture was taken out of the window of the trailer at around 5:00 am. I heard rustling and took a peek.
When we went outside a bit later I saw tracks in the sand right next to Lola.
Even though the weather was bad we did do a fair bit of walking on the beach.
