Hello, it’s Kim again!

The kids are on writing strike, it is summer vacation after all!

We had a great time at Assateague Island! Driving in we were greeted by ponies causing a traffic jam, had it been cows it would have felt like home. The ponies truly have the run of the island and we saw Park rangers out trying to move them out of the road, or encouraging them not to loiter in parking lots. One ranger was using a spray bottle of water to love the ponies along, kind of like we do with our cats! Just like our cats, I don’t think the ponies learned their lesson and were likely back in the parking lot that evening.

We started out at the Assateague State Park beach. The beach weather was fantastic after over a week of hot and sticky temperatures and humidity. When we first arrived around 9:30am the beach was almost empty and there was a cool breeze coming off the water. The waves were big enough to be exciting but small enough that we could get past them to swim for a bit. The water was surprisingly refreshing! We learned later from a park ranger that the water is unseasonably COOL right now! It wasn’t as icy as Maine, but still pretty chilly.

Around 10:30, which was also right around the time of the tide change the wind changed and wow could you tell the difference between land air and sea air! All of a sudden it was hot and humid again. We wandered down the beach to find some more ponies and also found a man teaching his grandson about a horseshoe crab. He was happy to show us where the crabs breathe from, and tell us some fun facts about them, like that their blood is blue. I don’t think we’ve ever found such a large horseshoe crab so it was really fun to see it up close.

After a little more swimming we took a break for lunch, talked with another ranger about the different animals we could find on the island and headed off down the road to the National Park section of the Island. Amos and the kids did some more swimming while Oliver napped and I rested in the car. The winds had shifted again so it was great to just sit with the windows open and listen to the ocean. When Oliver woke up from his nap we went clamming and crabbing with the National Park rangers. The kids didn’t get to catch any crabs, but we did find a few clams! McKinley and I both thought we had a clam and when we reached down for it we got pinched by a crab instead!  We also got to see a moon jellyfish! I’ve never seen any type of jellyfish in the wild so this was very cool. One of the park rangers was worried about us touching it but once I told her that we had never seen one but knew the dangers she was happy to let the kids look closely and teach them all about what part of the jellyfish stings and the different types of jellyfish.

A local told us that some of the ponies on the Assateague Island are owned by the state. Apparently the state of Virginia auctions off some of the ponies once a year! Amos pondered all day how to get a pony loaded into the van to take it with us but didn’t come up with any workable solutions so he’ll have to get a trailer and head down next year to get one. 

This might have been my favorite stop on the trip so far. Ocean, ponies and a state and National park visit with friendly rangers who were happy to teach us about the parks, you can’t get much better than that!

Although we are really grateful to the campground ranger who upgraded us to an air conditioned cabin to get a break from the heatwave, we’ve definitely learned that we prefer the state parks over private campgrounds. It’s hard to pass up the reasonable prices and the knowledge of the rangers who care for the parks!