When Suzanne for was very young she read the book “Misty” which was centered on the wild ponies of Chincoteague. When we started planning our “Chesapeake Fall”, she wanted to visit it. Chincoteague is actually an island on the Atlantic cost due east from Richmond, VA. Also, the Chincoteague Ponies actually live on Assateague Island which is next to Chincoteague. The most exciting apart of getting there is a trip over a 4+ mile long bridge – the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. A bridge so terrifying that there is a service that drives people in their car over the bridge for $25 a trip. As I was driving our 20 ton-60 feet long RV/car combo over the bridge, I couldn’t stop repetitively thinking “8 foot vehicle, 10 foot lane, 1 foot guard rail, we’re going to die”. Fortunately, my muscles were too tight to wet my pants. Suzanne cheered me up googling the bridge and reading that it was the 9th scariest driving bridge in the world from a travel web page. It was every bit as much fun an the way back.
Chincoteague is a still a working fishing/oyster town and the gateway to the Assateague Island National Seashore. We took a boat tour of the two islands in a pontoon boat that was focused on porpoises, ponies, water fowl, and the sights and sounds of Chincoteague Bay. “Captain Dan” was our host and gave us a great tour – pictures below. The short pony story is this: The ponies are wild but “managed”. About 150 of them live on Assateague and fend for themselves except they get regular and urgent health care from the local fire department (yes, not your average volunteer FD). The National Park Service maintains the park to keep people from interfering with the ponies lives and vice versa. The herd size is maintained by combination of the locals and the NPS folks – ponies are breed and/or sold off in an auction to keep the Island environment optimum for them. Many of the locals and seasonal folks know the ponies by name and keep track of where they are, who their friends are, who they’re dating, and the like. Sort of like parents of teenagers. We saw quite a few of them from the water. Naturally, Dan knew them all personally. We also saw porpoises and a lot of different birds including several bald eagles.
We also hiked most of the trails, which admittedly were limited as Assateague is a National Seashore, not a national park. One of our hikes was on the Atlantic Ocean side of the island on a beautiful afternoon when we felt compelled to drink a bottle of decent Zinfandel on the beach. The fact that nearly everyone else was probably at work made it that much sweeter.
