Assateague and Chincoteague

The day after Williamsburg, we spent the day exploring Jamestown.  We really enjoyed exploring the area.  We took a ferry over to a beautiful lunch spot on the water and then beat the heat by taking C to his first movie!  We saw Toy Story 5 and it was a good reminder on how tech has overtaken our lives.  

Next we drove to Ocean City, MD.  The kids had a ball on the amusement park rides at the boardwalk!  We tried the famous fries, boardwalk lemonade and ice cream.  The view from the top of the ferris wheel was beautiful and even Gampie got in on the ride-fun with the bumper cars!



The next morning, we popped over to Delaware to see a lighthouse in the morning and then ventured to Chincoteague with the hopes of glimpsing some wild ponies!  After a visit to the wildlife refuge visitor's center, C got a birding patch and picked up his Junior Ranger badge packet.  We drove Beach Road and saw some wild horses!!  The wildlife loop didn't open for cars until 3 pm, so we drove back out of the park and visited the museum that housed the real Misty of Chincoteague -- taxidermied of course.  After the museum, we drove the loop and then explored the town a bit.  We found another amusement park and the boys rode go karts, slides, bumper boats and more!  At 6:30 we went to the marina and hopped on Barnacle Bill's boat tour.  We spotted some bald eagles on the ride but unfortunately the horses had headed into the forest because of the incoming storm.  The ride was still beautiful and we learned a lot about the history of the area and stories of the ponies.  They adapted to the land and can practically drink salt water!  Their kidneys and livers are three times the normal size and that helps them float.  Every year, the volunteer fire depart and the saltwater cowboys round up the wild horses and swim them across from Assateague to Chincoteague in an event called the Pony Penning.  2025 marked the 100th anniversary of this tradition.  They sell off the foals to maintain a herd size of 150.  The area was also known for world-famous oysters.  

Today we woke up and headed towards the Outer Banks.  We got to to through a really neat tunnel bridge near Virginia Beach on the way down.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Los Alamos

Image
​ We had a long journey to Los Alamos. The roads were really bad - full of pot holes, topes (speed bumps) and vibradores (rumble strips). Our microwave continues to not want to stay in place and we had a friend whose upper cabinets came unbolted. Yikes!  The day was 6 hours and we arrived at a less than favorable “campground”. It was a dirt lot full of garbage and broken glass.  It was 90 degrees so we pulled put the generators to cool the trailer off. We had no services.  Carpooling into town, we found a lovely restaurant for dinner and then the rest of the crew headed back while I joined half of the caravan for an evening walk around the city. I’m feeling the weight of the final part of my pregnancy and sitting in the car for so many hours had my legs feeling restless. A troupe of minstrels led us around the city singing and dancing. The town square was lively on the Sunday evening and many people from the town joined in the festivities.  A 33 year old donkey name...
Read more

Los Barriles

Image
​ This has been one of our favorite cities so far!  I was due to have a gestational diabetes screening soon, so Stu took me into town to the East Cape Medical Center. Everyone was really friendly and the lab only cost $25 usd. He dropped me off at 8 am and went back to get the kiddos settled with breakfast and staring their day. The clinic drew my blood to check for baseline sugar levels after fasting, I drank a glucose solution and waited an hour - they drew my blood - and then waited another hour for the final blood draw. The results were emailed to me by 2 pm!  Everything looks good.  When the family picked me up, we talked over the idea of renting a side-by-side for a few days. The city roads are small and our truck is quite large. We decided it was a good plan - so we stopped by the rental facility and I drove the side by side back to the campground while Stu drove the truck.  We got settled and then started out on the day’s adventure. You are allowed to drive t...
Read more

Playa Santispac

Image
​ We are feeling very off grid at present. For $10/night we are boondocking on Playa Santispac - a beach somewhere between Mulage and Loretto. The setting is simply gorgeous. Trailers are all lined up along the beach. Today we rented a kayak for the day for about $20!  As I drank my coffee outside this morning, 6-8 dolphins were jumping in the water - so beautiful that I had to race inside to grab the binoculars for a closer view.  We are steps away from a restaurant and I enjoyed coconut shrimp for both lunch and dinner. Our wagon masters scouted our next destination and found it to be really awful (a cow manure filled field with wild dogs roaming and no connections with the exception of three household style plugs to share among 12 rigs) so we are extending our stay in “paradise” for a few more days. We will roll towards La Paz on Monday. We have very little internet so it has been nice to unplug and read books and play on the beach.  The kids continue to work on their ...
Read more