Chincoteague

On the northern coast of Virginia lies the uninhabited Assateague island and it's neighbor Chincoteague island.  Many believe that the wild ponies of Assateague arrived when a Spanish galleon ship sunk of the coast of the island.  The horses lived in isolation on Assateague for many years, and they adapted well to their new environment.  A little too well, in fact.  Population control is an issue.  So, every July, the residents of Chincoteague go over to Assateague, round up a number of horses, swim them across the channel from Assateague to Chincoteague, and auction them off.
A few years ago, Olivia and I read the book "Misty of Chincoteague" which tells the story of Phantom, a wild pony of Assateague island, and her colt, Misty.  We pass Chincoteague island every year on our way to Delaware and we always say we'll visit one year.  This was the year.  The main thing that we wanted to do on the island was to see the ponies- several of which are descendants of Misty.  

 Our first stop was the Chincoteague Pony Center where we singed the kids up for riding lessons.  This was their first non-guided, solo ride on a horse.  The girl who gave the lesson was phenomenal.  The kids started by learning how to sit on a horse properly and how to maneuver it using the reigns.  They practiced by going around the ring, stopping and starting the horse, and changing directions.  The instructor then put out some orange cones and had the kids weave the horse in and out of them.  After that, she had the kids trot the horse.  Finally, she placed some brushes on top of the posts of the riding ring and had the kids steer the horse to each post, collect the brush, and deposit the brush into a bucket in the middle of the arena. This took a lot of steering.  The kids did great for a first time on a horse.  The only minor hiccup that Owen didn't want to kick the horse because he was scared he'd hurt it (and his horse was older and didn't really want to go on his own).  He got more confident as the lesson went on, but it took a little while to get there.  Once the lesson was over, each kid got to pick a ribbon as a souvenir.

After our riding lesson, we had lunch on Chincoteague and then drove over to the national seashore on Assateague island. The kids had fun on the beach.  The water was cold, so mostly they played in the sand.  

As we were leaving the island we spotted some wild ponies in the distance.  That was a nice way to end our afternoon.