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We are on vacation

Our hotel is hosting an Elder Hostel this week. My grandparents did lots of Elder Hostel back in the day and loved it.

I told Oz, "Ooh! All those people are here for Elder Hostel!"

He said, "Elder Hostile?"

"Yeah, Elder Hostile. It's like Fight Club for old people. You know, the first rule of Elder Hostile is 'You don't talk about Elder Hostile.'"

All the Elders break this rule.

By odd coincidence, it is also the tail end of DelMarVa bike week and flocks of Harleys are roaring down the quiet streets. One can look down a row of hotels and restaurants and see signs saying "Welcome Bikers" right next to signs saying "Welcome Elders."

Our hotel looks out over the channel between Chincoteague (yes, we came back). This morning I stepped out onto the balcony and saw not the mainland. It's misty, as it should be, and the sky blended seamlessly with the water. The clouds were still pinkish with dawn and the water of the channel was smooth and cast up silky reflections. Then a school of dolphins swam up the channel in their photogenically synchronized way. Ah! Pretty.

Now the hotel is being buzzed by vintage aircraft.

The mosquitoes are awful, worse than what we remembered from last year. We didn't come prepared and paid for it by missing a perfect pony photography opportunity. At sunset on our first evening here, the wild ponies were right up by the road, prettily backlight with white herons perched on their backs. We only got a couple shots before the bugs drove us away. We had to enjoy the nature refuge from the car. "Oh, nature is so nice to drive through with the windows down."

Another day passes.

We still run into flocks of Elders about town. They travel in a chartered school bus, so we know they're there before we see them.

Monday: We went to the lighthouse, after running to the supermarket to get the magic of Deep Woods OFF and some handy DEET wipes. We saw the ElderBus in the lot, but we were alone on the trail, except for a million frustrated mosquitoes who would fly up to us, retch, and fly away. Then they'd come back because they're bugs and they don't have much in the way of long term memory. The lighthouse came into sight, then we stepped out of the woods and into a flock of Elders spraying each other with DEET.

In the evening we went back out to the wildlife refuge, applied more OFF, and took a short walk on the wooden walkways around the Toms Cove Nature Center. Down on the sand, two brown rabbits nibbled on salty grass and kept one eye on us. A woman with two little boys walked up and after an initial cry of "Bunnies!" the boys piped down and watched, with only occasional whispers of "They're so cute!" They found another bunny further along the walkway.

Today is Tuesday. We waited all day for the rain, we drove around and looked at things. We found the giant Viking and Beebe Ranch, where they have stuffed Misty on display. I had been planning to check out stuffed Misty (grossed out by the whole concept, Oz had been planning to wait in the car), but I missed my chance this year. They closed for the season the day before we arrived.

Toad massacre! In the evening the toads hop onto the road through the wildlife refuge. We can see them by the light of the headlights. They mostly look like pale little lumps, almost like pieces of gravel, except when they hop (sometimes under the wheels). The rain brought out extra toads who fling themselves into the path of the car. I'm hoping we're missing them, but I actually hear when the wheels run over a big one. Euw! Oz says, "Don't worry, the rain will wash the toad guts off the car." I say, "I'm not worried about that, I'm worried about the toads."

Wednesday: Cold pushy Canadian air followed the rain and brought in perfect autumn days. Evidence of the toad massacre has been washed away by the rain. But the toads know the real story. Thanks to the sudden temperature drop we are safe from toad revenge. For now. A couple days later I found a squashed baby turtle by the road, but we are totally not responsible for the turtle.

There are Mennonites in town. (Not that I could recognize Mennonites specifically, but I assume they are. These folks are members of one of those German religious sects which have clothing rules where the guys can dress like regular guys, but the women have to wear odd-shaped homemade dresses, specific hairstyles, and little white caps or veils.) We saw some of the women, in their billowing pastel dresses and little caps, on a bicycle built for four ride up to the causeway to the wildlife refuge. They pulled out fishing rods and a net and proceeded to lay waste to the water creatures while talking on their cell phones.

We took sunset pictures. A great blue heron hangs out near the Toms Cove nature center and I took lots of poorly exposed pictures of it. I then mucked around with metering settings and got a few pictures that might do. I did catch a glimpse of the bunnies again. And this time I had the big lens on the camera and the tripod. The ponies are not so forthcoming as the bunnies and waterfowl. The ponies, they mock us.

At night we went out to the beach on the wildlife refuge to look at the stars. We could see the Milky Way (which never fails to amaze me) and lots of Dippers (all constellations look like dippers). We saw a total of three shooting stars and lots of planes tooling up and down the Eastern Seaboard.

[Each day is broken up into interludes of napping, eating fried foods, reading books, and tourist stuff. The hotel's internet access isn't working and I am not motivated enough to take the laptop out on a quest for wireless.]

Thursday: We got up insanely early to do a light hike before the sun got too high. The view from the pony overlook did not have much in the way of ponies. Damn the ponies! In the woods we saw deer and birds and interesting fungi, or at least fungus-looking things. Oz called one type "Dead Man's Tulips" ("Dead Man's Tulips! You didn't touch it, did you? Better get to the emergency room so they can amputate your finger. Might save your life.") The landscapes on Assateague appeal to my monkey brain, that layer of cortex laid down as our ancestors stepped down from the treetops and walked out onto the savannahs. Broad expanses of grasslands and scrubby shrubs, tall stands of pine trees in the hazy air, and ponies in the distance. Birds and deer walk around and pose. Bunnies sit up and look at you when you say, "Bunny!" A raccoon bustles by on his raccoon business. Admittedly, our ancestors saw a lot more in the way of large carnivores and considerably less in the way of cute furry creatures.

Friday: We climbed to the top of the Assateague Lighthouse this morning. The volunteer at the top gave us stickers to prove it. Unlike other lighthouses I've climbed, this lighthouse is very airy. The double-walled structure provides room for airshafts in the walls which keep the inside cool and breezy, except for the glassed in bit at the top. We could see across Chincoteague to the mainland and all over this end of the refuge. If we wanted to spend three hours sweating under the giant lenses, we could sit up there tomorrow and watch for a rocket launch from Wallops. And that's about all we did today. We photographed ponies eating grass. Ate lunch. Read. I've almost run out of books, so it's just as well that we're heading home tomorrow.

In order, I've read Fly by Night by Frances Hardinge, Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart, Stolen by Annette Lapointe, Thud! by Terry Pratchett, and Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell. That's about a book a day, a normal rate for me when I have neither work nor internet access.