Assateague

My last post was mostly about my walk, so I didn't get to tell about the fun we had at Assateague yesterday. Assateague is an island off the Delmarva Peninsula where horses were either shipwrecked or ranched back in the 17th century. There have been wild horses there ever since.

Brishen and I read the book "Misty of Chincoteague" about the annual tradition of swimming a herd of the wild horses across part of the bay to sell them at the fire hall in Chincoteague. It still happens every July and is now much more famous because of the book. Ocean City is very near to Assateague, so we decided to see if we could spot some wild horses.

We stopped at the visitor's center and were very glad we did. They had the aquarium version of a petting zoo. We got to pick up horseshoe crabs, a spider crab, and various other crustaceans. It was really neat even though Basia wasn't about to participate, and we had to practically force Brishen to pick up the big horseshoe crab.

We then drove onto the island, knowing that it was not very likely that we would spot the ponies. Within minutes, I spotted a couple horses off in the distance. We stopped and were very pleased with our luck. We drove on and Jon spotted a little herd on a little island. We pulled over and got very near to them, including a foal. We got to see the stallion in action, leading his family through the water to another land area. We got to see him come back and force a lagging female to rejoin the family. It was really neat to see horses as wild animals.

Today we will be going to Colonial Williamsburg and then on to Richmond, with some possible stops along the way.