It’s been a minute! I have missed you all, sincerely. Recently, the guys and I took a vacation to Chincoteague Island and Assateague Island on the eastern coast of Virginia.
We had a great time. Have you ever visited Chincoteague Island or Assateague Island?
Both Chincoteague and Assateague are famous for their wild ponies. Somewhat inconveniently, I do not have any pictures of the wild ponies that we saw on this trip. Bummer!
If I had a pony picture, this is where I would have put it. So imagine your own picture of a pony eating marsh grass. There you go!
While I have visited the Maryland portion of Assateague Island before, I have never visited the southern portion of the National Seashore. (Assateague Island is a National Seashore, and is protected and patrolled by the National Park Service) Also before this trip, I had never visited Chincoteague Island. The guys have never seen any of the islands, so it was a new adventure for all of us.
Perhaps, you have been to Chincoteague or Assateague before. . .and if you have, you can skip the next paragraph, but if not.
Chincoteague and Assateague are Islands that are right beside each other. On this trip we slept on Chincoteague Island, in Virginia, which is where housing and food accommodations are located. We visited the Assateague National Seashore and Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge which are located on Assateague Island. The wild ponies in Virginia hang out on Assateague Island until the end of July when the “Salt Cowboys” of the Chincoteague Fire Department, swim the ponies to Chincoteague Island to be auctioned off in a yearly event to benefit the Fire Department. You can read about it here. (It’s the same link as the previous one, in case you missed it).
This year’s pony swim will be held on July 27, 2022. It is coming up. It’s a really big deal in Chincoteague, as you might imagine.
I want to mention that the Maryland portion of Assateague Island has it’s own herd of wild ponies as well. A fence separates the Maryland and Virginia State line on Assateague Island. The VA and MD ponies do not interact. The Maryland Assateague Island ponies are managed by the National Park Service. They are managed like any wild animal on National Park Lands such as deer and bison and do not participate in the pony swim or receive medical care. The Virginia herd is managed by the Chincoteague Fire Department and all the wild ponies in this herd get veterinary services twice a year.
When originally envisioning our trip, I hoped to visit the Maryland portion of Assateague Island as well, which I visited in 2007. However, in order to do that, one must leave the Virginis Islands and drive back onto the mainland of Virginia and take surface routes to Berlin, Maryland and enter the park that way. There is no island vehicle access between the two Assateague Park entrances. The trip between the two entrances would probably take at least an hour. So we did not do that.
What we did do was to invite family and friends to join us on this trip. My sister Liz took us up on the offer and stayed with us for a portion of out trip. It was so delightful to have her there. The boys loved entertaining Aunt Liz with their stories and antics.
Here are some pictures from our trip:
I would be remiss if I did not mention an interesting coincidence that happened while we were on the beach. Two days in a row, we ran into my youngest sister’s kindergarten teacher wile we were playing in the sand. I would not have recognized her because I do not know if I ever met her, but my husband talked to her while her youngest son and Preschool Nugget played with trucks in the sand. The subject came up of “where are you from” and what-not. When she said where she was from, my husband told her that I was from the same area. It turns out that she lives in the next town over but she is a teacher at the school that my sisters and I all attended. Her father was also visiting the beach with her. Coincidentally, her father was my older sister’s 3rd grade teacher. She called him over and he talked to me. We then reminisced about the school district that I attended and all the teachers and staff that used to work there. It was fun to speak with them both.
On our last full day at Chincoteague, we had an opportunity to visit the Wildlife Refuge visitor center as it is only open Thursdays-Sundays. It is called the Herbert H. Bateman Educational and Administrative Center. If you visit Chincoteague Island, I reccommend that you check it out. It is larger than the nearby Tom’s Cove Visitor Center which is open every day of the week and is right near the beach.
While we were at the Bateman Visitor Center we found information about NASA, which is awesome because Mr. Man loves NASA right now thanks to YouTube videos made by former NASA engineer Mark Rober.
NASA Wallops Flight Facility is located on Wallops Island right next to Chincoteague Island. The visitor center for NASA Wallops was closed during the week of our visit. Fortunately, staff from NASA visited the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge visitor center during our stay. The boys had fun trying an educational activity with one of the NASA educators. We also got information about NASA rocket launches that happen several times a year at Wallops. Visitors are invited to view the rocket launches. Mr. Man really wants to come back and see a rocket launch some day in the future. Perhaps you will read about that here someday!
Thank you for reading about our vacation. What are you up to this summer?
Wow! It sounds like you guys had an awesome vacation.