assateague island

Anyone do anything fun for the holiday weekend?

I did. Well, not for the weekend, but yesterday. My friend and I went to Assateague Island to see the wild horses. Did anyone else read Misty of Chincoteague as a little girl (it doesn't strike me as the type of book little boys would read, but I could be wrong)? Well...I did. We both did. And a little over a month ago while chatting over sushi, we somehow started talking about it and it dawned on us that we were close to Assateague and Chincoteague. Now granted, after some research, we missed the scheduled driving across the bay, but the horses on Assateague are wild and you can see them year round.

We found a day that worked for both of us, and drove up there and back yesterday. If you'd like to do it, it's about a three hour trip and Google maps does a great job with the directions.

Anyway, when we crossed over to the island, we drove past two brown horses ambling along the side of the road, but didn't get any pictures of these two. I guess we thought the island would be teaming with the 150 strong herd. But...it's a long, thin island.

We went first (after a couple of trips around finding a parking lot, let alone a spot) to the Life of the Forest trail, which was a nice escape in the hot day. From the outlook point we saw several horses at a distance. Along with a bird. Now...if only we can get to that other side. But...it's an island, right? How confusing could it be?

We drove to the end of the island and parked at the Trail of the Dunes, which I have renamed the Trail of Doom. It was a gorgeous trail, but it was sand. And we both thought the trip would be like the earlier trail, and both wore athletic shoes and I had on jeans and it was hot. It's also been awhile since I trudged through sand and this was deep sand with a lot of resistance.

And no horses here.

But it was beautiful and so the Doom nickname was more of a joke. We made it back to car and thankfully it was after we were back in air conditioning that we realized the weather was up into the 90s. Not knowing that during the sand hike might have made it even worse.

On the way back to the bridge we went down a road and there we saw three more horses that we got out and followed a ways. Now that was pretty cool. They had the right idea by plowing ahead into the water. We hoped they'd lead us back to the larger herd, but they were probably lounging in the shade. Even those these are wild horses, they're not like what I'd imagine the mustangs would be. You could get close to them and they got close to the people around (I think brushing past an oblivious fisherman who looked around with surprise at the three horses walking past him), so we definitely got some great shots.

It was definitely a great experience and a wonderful day trip. I satiated that desire from when I was a little girl completely infatuated with horses (and I think that little girl is definitely still around) and we learned some things for the next time we go. Bring towels and a swimsuit, because the ocean was far too tempting. Had we submitted to that desire, it would have been a long...wet car ride home. And bring better shoes for walking on sand. And more sunblock since I think we sweated most of it off.

Anyway, that's the trip in a nutshell. I have more pictures here. I didn't put them all up, but I took about fifty pictures. The island itself is beautiful, which only adds to the coolness of being there. And I think it is pretty much guaranteed that you'll see a horse or two. Whereas if you go out West with lots of land and try to see the mustangs...well, you might not.

Up next, I hope, is a trip to Luray Caverns. I went once when I was very little and don't remember a whole lot. But I think it would definitely be worth it to visit again.