Day 425

This afternoon, we headed to Hampton, VA to eat seafood. Afterwards, we went to the near by Buckroe Beach, to let our daughter play in the sand. There were seagulls perched on the boardwalk lights and power lines.

Day 247

Yesterday, I mentioned I had a surprise reason for coming to Chincoteague that isn't just the beach. Today, we started off by going on a pontoon cruise of the waters between Chincoteague Island and Assateague Island. On Assateague Island live wild ponies. It's thought that the ponies arrived on the island due to a shipwreck of a Spanish boat. The ponies swam ashore and have generationally lived there since. Assateague Island is split by Virginia and Maryland. On the Virginia side, where the ponies are is protected and humans can't interact with them. However once a year (in a few days actually) The Saltwater Cowboys (the volunteer fire fighters) round up some of the ponies and auction them off to raise funds for the fire station. They have been doing this since the 1920s. On the Maryland side, they occupy a beach area that is open to humans. Once again, like the other beach, it's maintained by the state and doesn't have hotels along it because it's wetland. You will see photos from both sections of Assateague Island.

Starting with the boat tour...

These ponies are free to roam on several acres of land. The boat can only come so close to the shore. There were lots of them farther away from the shore line, but those photos aren't as clear. These two ponies were separate from the herd.

I forget what kind of birds these are, but they swim under the water to catch fish and sit up on these posts to dry their wings.

We got back on shore and changed into beach clothes, to head to the Maryland side. While on the way to the hotel, we stopped to let this duck family cross.

On the Maryland side, things are much different. These ponies were grazing on the sides of the road. They are very docile, but since they are wild animals, of course we didn't attempt to interact with them.

My two favorite travelers and the beautiful clean beach. Since there are no hotels, there is a lot less trash! Delightful!

This one was about two feet away from the car.

Day 246

Today we started a weekend vacation on Chincoteague Island in Virginia. It's on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay. By a bird's eye view, it's only about an hour away. However, unless you have a helicopter or small plane, you aren't getting there that way. From Richmond, it's about 4 hours away. We had to travel down the coast to Virginia Beach (about 1.5 hrs) and up the island coast to Chincoteague, which is at the very end of the island section of the coast (about 2.5 hrs). Chincoteague has uninhabited beaches. What does this mean? It means that there are no hotels lining their beaches, unlike Virginia Beach. This is mostly due to it being wetlands/marshes which makes the land not suitable for building. This means that the public area is part of a nature preserve and you can't access all of it, but you can access a large portion, which is good enough for us. There is another reason why we chose Chincoteague for our destination. I'll save that surprise for tomorrow.

Marsh land on the way to the island. Marsh is on either side of the road for miles before we get to the bridge for the island.

There were red and orange flowers along the front of the hotel.

Panoramic of the waterway behind the hotel. There was a little balcony for our room, which had this beautiful view.

This is the sun glistening on the water by the bridge.

After dinner, we went to the beach to walk around.

This is a different variety of seagull than we normally see in Virginia Beach.

Birdy foot print

Waves

Sorry that the horizon isn't straight, but this is a good view of the waves crashing. I took a few sets, but this is my favorite.

The other side of the beach area is marsh. There are many kinds of wild life on the nature preserve. Birds are the most common. 

Crane

By the time we got back to the hotel, the sun was setting. We walked along the back boardwalk and watched it set. We also watched what a local called "The Parade of Ducks" and Alex calls "Duck School". It was a large group of ducks. There were two adults guiding the young ones off the board walk and into the water. Then, guiding the group around this isle of land into the main water.

Day 170

Today, we started our 9 day vacation. We left at 4am. The first leg stretching stop was in SC at a rest stop with a welcome center.

For lunch, we went to Uncle Buba's in Savannah, GA. Then, we walked around Forsyth Park before embarking on the next part of our long drive for the day.

These small birds were eating from the grass along the street we parked on.

The sun was shining bright through the oak trees. Oak trees by the ocean are different than those by us. Salt water causes the tree branches to twist as they grow. They also have Spanish moss growing on them. This is common along the Southern coast.

This pet bunny was relaxing in the busy park. It was on a leash and wasn't nervous around the large amount of people at the chalk festival. Since it's a pet, it doesn't fit with my normal wild creatures. However, it was surprisingly very calm for a bunny in a busy park with lots of dogs.

We headed to Jacksonville, FL for the evening. After checking into our hotel at the Mayo Clinic (I kid you not), we headed for the near by beach.

Like most beaches, there were seagulls. I love the reflective qualities of the water on the sand.

John found this on the beach. John thinks it's a jelly fish. I thought it might be a boob implant.. I know, I'm the gorey one. Either way, it was neat looking. I wasn't allowed to poke it.

The receding water caused ripples in the sand. Darker sand was deposited in the valleys of the ripples. Because the wet sand was so reflective, the setting sun glowed brightly on it.

This is what the sand looks like as it absorbs the remaining receding water.

This is what the sand looks like from being walked on by many people. It's like small dunes.

While walking back to the car, I saw these tall pink flowers...

...and these cactus flowers.

We wanted to eat dinner at the beach. An irony of Jacksonville is all the bars that line the beach. Given that the Mayo Clinic (best known as an addiction rehab) is located in Jacksonville, FL, the large amount of bars must keep them in business with some locals too. Since, we couldn't find a suitable place at the beach to eat dinner with Alex, we went in search of somewhere else. On the way to find a suitable spot, I took a photo of the setting sun. We found Gumbo Yaya. It's a small place with wonderful New Orleans food. Very delicious and worth the search.

Day 100

Yay, I've reached 100 days!!!! This is a photo heavy post, but that is sort of fitting. I'm making them a large size, but if you click on the photos, you will see a much large size. If there are errors with this many photos showing, please let me know.

John surprised Alex and I with a trip to Pony Pasture today. Pony Pasture is a stop along the James River. You can walk along the banks on paths. There are also areas you can climb on rocks to get closer to the water. This is great in the summer and also great if you are like me, and want to take photos. Today, there were a lot of ducks. They were very friendly and were comfortable coming close. Of course, I'm quiet and let them do what ever they want. Alex however, is loud and kept quacking at them, so I made her go play with John instead of duck watching with me. She kept making them swim away. Anyway, to start, here are a lot of duck photos and a couple stop motion movies.

This duck loved to sit on this rock. He would swim around and then waddle up on the rock.

Ducks swimming. This is a bit down river. You can also see a seagull flying. There were hundreds of them sitting on the rocks.

A bit further up river, where the rock loving duck was, there was a female one. In this photo, she is eating from the bottom of the river.

The two males were fighting over the female. Tis' the season I suppose. Their quacking made Alex quack.

Three ducks eating.

The three ducks had swam around this large rock. They used the rapids to get back over to the area they mostly stayed in. It was amusing to watch them go down the rapids.

These are the three ducks swimming.

The river upstream

The river downstream

These are seagulls on the rocks an flying.

These are some rapids. I thought a stop motion movie would show their rhythm well. 

I liked the striped in this fallen tree.

This is an overgrown bridge.

Before we got to Pony Pasture, we headed over the Huguenot bridge. I was a passenger, so I got to take photos of the beautiful river.

Heading the other way on the bridge, I took a photo of the trees lining the train tracks.

These are my two helpers. Alex (the human) helps me detect pretty sunrises. Pippi (the cat) helps me detect birds, squirrels and moths.