I had heard from a coworker that there was an island along the coast of Maryland that had a beach and wild horses. It wasn’t until two years later, on a weekend trip to Ocean City with some friends, that I saw for myself.

The beach was so pretty. And the sky looked like it had been painted. I took a lot of pictures of the soft pink clouds hanging just above the horizon.

After admiring the views and tossing around a volleyball for a while, we packed up our beach gear and got into our cars to search for the horses.

I don’t know how, because as far as I remember, we were wandering pretty aimlessly, but we drove onto a street that was meant to be blocked off (only no one was manning the tollbooth). Almost immediately, we spotted two horses, and as we continued to drive, we could see groups of them at different points along the road.

I knew there would be a beach. I knew there would be wild horses. But I had no idea that Assateague Island also had coastal wetlands! And they were amazing.

I’m so glad we ended up taking this day trip to Assateague Island. We got in some beach time, saw the selling point (the horsies, of course), and even stumbled upon an entirely new ecosystem we weren’t expecting to find there. And can we all agree that marshes are severely underrated? I think some of the best pictures I’ve ever taken are in this collection. Thank you for looking at them ♡