Rest of the Chincoteague/Assateague Trip

The next morning started with a trip to the Blueberry Festival and Craft Festival. I'm not normally a craft festival kind of person and if my mom hadn't been on trip I probably wouldn't have gone but it ended up being pretty cool. Since the festival was so near Pony Penning there were lots of horse crafts plus tons of beachy themed ones as well. My Mom and I got *a ton* of Christmas shopping done for each other. My favorite story from that morning comes from when my Mom and I split up to buy some stuff for each other. When we left Baltimore I hadn't planned to find so much at the craft fair so needless to say I was running low on cash. I was at one of the stands getting my Mom something she really loved only to discover I was $10 short of the total and the guy running the stand didn't take credit cards. Once I figured this out I made sure to take his card and I told him that I'd be calling him that week to place an order for what my Mom wanted. He stopped me, looked me over and told me he thought I looked trustworthy so he would take the money I did have and I could send him a check for the remainder so I wouldn't have to pay shipping on the item. I couldn't believe it, I thought people that trusting didn't exist anymore. Of course I happily wrote him a nice letter and got the check in the mail to him as soon as we got home! It was just nice to have my faith in humanity at least temporarily restored.

After the craft fair it was onto the beach for a while. That night we attended the Fireman's Carnival. It doesn't sound like a big deal (and really it was quite small) but the history behind it all was amazing. To a girl who grew up on Misty, Stormy, Phantom etc... being able to actually attend the Carnival so frequently talked about in those books was like stepping into a fairy tale!

That night also began what ended up being a silly crazy search. To fully understand you have to backup to when Kris and I were on Mackinac Island; now if you remember horses are the main form of transportation on the island. Also Mackinac is significantly farther north than Baltimore which meant I froze most of the time I was there because I only brought 1 pair of jeans and 1 sweatshirt. At that point Kris and I went on the hunt for a hoodie with a horse on it that preferably said Mackinac Island. You would think that wouldn't be hard to find, right?? WRONG! We went into EVERY store on Main Street and had no luck whatsoever. So, back to the present, since we were on the two biggest horse islands in the USA I decided to resume my search for a horse hoodie. That night at least ended up being a fruitless search. After stopping in way too many stores my Mom and I finally called it quits to get some shut eye before our super early but very exciting morning.

ZZZZZZZZ...........

Oh, time to wake up! Well the next morning we arose at some insane hour (I believe 4am) so we could be on the beach by 5 am (or thereabouts). Now my Mom and I are clearly beach people however this is extreme even for us, what would drag us to the beach at that hour you might ask? Why, Horses of course! See there are actually 2 herds of horses on Assateague. Half of the island is in Maryland and the other half is in Virginia. What we saw Saturday was a round up of the Virginia herd. On Sunday they rounded up the Maryland herd and put them in pens on that side. However all the herds need to be together for the swim. So as the light is just breaking over the horizon the Saltwater Cowboys drive the Maryland herd down the beach to join up with the other herd! How cool!!! Here are some pictures from the pretty amazing event...

We weren't the only crazy people!

The first cowboys appear

More of the crowds

Bringing up the rear

  As short as the whole thing was it felt so cool to be that close (again!) to the wild ponies as they were being driven down my favorite location in the world...a beach. Too cool!

Once we got back to the hotel it was sadly time to pack up and check out. :( Before we spent the afternoon on the beach we went to "downtown" Chincoteague to check out some shops and resume my hoodie search. They had a statue of Misty downtown that was quite sweet to see.

After looking in more shops than I care to count I was ready to call the search quits however my mother insisted we check out a few more and we finally hit the jackpot. This one store had about 5 different hoodies all with horses and all either said Chincoteague, Assateague or Pony Penning. Finally I had my hoodie which means we could head back to the beach for our final afternoon.

After napping on the beach to make up for our early start we made a trip down to see ALL the ponies since both herds were now in the pens....

Nap time for the babies

Finally at about 7 I think we left the island. We got back to Baltimore late and my Mom got back to Pittsburgh even later that same night (yes she is crazy!) but it was an amazing weekend full of lots of surprise blessings!

Ponies here we come!!!

So while Kris was still in Michigan for the two weeks following our vacation, I took another trip this time with one of my oldest (I mean within my lifetime, not her age!) traveling companions, my Mommy!! We headed down to Chincoteague and Assateague, VA to spend some time on the beach and see some pre-Pony Penning day activities. I ended up finding this adorable hotel to stay in that was right on one of the marshes. They even had a little dock then extended out into the marsh complete with fishing equipment and a picnic table so you could either try your hand at fishing or just sit and read a book. After checking in the first day of course the first thing we did was head to the beach!!! We got to catch some good rays that afternoon. We also decided that since we had sat in the car for quite a few hours that morning that a good nature walk was in order. Luckily on our nature walk we happened to hear some people talking about how they were getting ready to round up one of the herds of ponies and put them in the pens to prepare for Pony Penning Day later the next week. We followed the directions and ended up having a front row seat as the ponies were driven into their pens in front of us, literally because the only thing blocking us from the horses was a fire hose laid on the ground! During the drive itself it was a tad chaotic so we didn't get lots of good pictures of that but we did get a bunch after the ponies were in the pens.

The adult in this picture looks an awful lot like my Misty Breyer doll!

We felt so blessed that we pretty much stumbled into one of the coolest things ever!! That night after dinner we decided to play the required round of mini-golf which, if I am remembering correctly, I totally won. Then we laid our little heads down to sleep for what promised to be a very busy next day.

Final Michigan Trip Post

I realized I forgot to tell the whole story of when Kris and I tried to look at the Grand Hotel.....So we already knew that we wouldn't be allowed on the porch or inside the hotel without dining reservations but we figured we could at least walk around the grounds and see some of the gardens....but we were wrong. We started to walk down the street the hotel is on only to find out that you aren't even allowed to walk down the street without having reservations at the hotel unless you pay a $10/person fee. Needless to say Kris was fairly outraged that we were prohibited from even walking down the street! So these are the few pictures we could grab before we were quickly escorted off the premise....

The Grand Hotel has the longest porch in the world!

After biking to the Grand Hotel we continued around the Island to the Inn at Stonecliff , which also boasts some of the nicest accommodations on the Island (yet again out of our price range!) but at least we were free to roam the grounds without paying a fee...

The only way to travel!

We also found the Mackinac Island Airport...*chuckle chuckle* no Boeing 747's here. Although they do offer sightseeing tours through the air that sounds pretty cool!

After seeing some of the perks I have to admit a career in politics sounds more appealing once we learned the Governor maintains a year round vacation cottage on the Island...I have to admit if I was the Governor I might not get a lot accomplished!

Later on our way off the Island we took some final pictures as we sadly said goodbye!

The Grand Hotel from the water

My attempt to prove how clean and clear the water is! Much cleaner than any of the Three Rivers!

After returning to the mainland we took one last excursion....over the Mackinac Island Bridge...which is the only way to drive between the Lower Peninsula and the Upper Peninsula. Kris was very excited that I could now say I had been to the UP....

I loved the clouds in this picture

St. Ignaces is the other port that the ferries for Mackinac go to...

Sadly that is the last of our Michigan trip pictures. The rest of the time we were just visiting with some old friends (well old friends for Kris, new friends for me!). We did get to spend a day at the lake with Kevin and Karen and their kids plus lots of family members and we had a blast on the jetskis, the pontoon boat and water tubing (although we were very sore the next day!).

We definitely made the most of our week in Michigan and hope to return sooner rather than later!