Mid Pleasures and Palaces We Have Roamed

We've just returned from a fast but fabulous little vacation! And it's all thanks to Suzanne!

The pleasures we enjoyed were of the natural beauty and beachy sort and the palaces were basically made of sand.  Around here it is typical for people to spend their summer vacations at the shore for a week. But beaches lined with high rise hotels and sands packed with well oiled sunbathers are not our cup of tea, so we have always avoided the beach. So when I saw Suzanne's lovely pictures of her family's recent vacation on Chincoteague and given our recent success at traveling I thought Hey! We should go there! To a beautiful, uncrowded beach with a national wildlife refuge all in one!

We were all so excited to be going to this place we'd read so much about in beloved books. When we arrived on the island we didn't stop to check in at our hotel. We kept driving, straight over to Assateague, and onward to the ocean. Our proverbial jaws dropped in amazement as we took in the sights of increasing expanses of water and inlets just teeming with all sorts of aquatic birds. Cormorants! Skimmers! Sandpipers! Gulls! Herons! Egrets! Egrets! Egrets! At home here we get so excited to see one egret - down there we saw so many and several different kinds. Michael was amazed when we spotted the famous wild ponies on our first drive in. (He was also amazed at the fierce and impressive twist-and-strike abilities of the huge snapping turtle we encountered on the road, but that is an entirely differnt story.)

And then we got to the beach and got out of the car and presented the children with the sight of the Atlantic. And the smell of the misty salt spray. And the taste of the cool salt water. And the sound of the screeching greedy gulls. And the feel of the crunchy shelly sand and the hot smooth sand and the hard wet sand and the never-ending crashing of the waves and that delirious feeling as the sand whooshes away from under your feet as you try to keep your balance. They took it all in.

We packed a lot into our short stay. Waking early to see the sun rise

and playing

and exploring

and discovering

all day

until it set.

On Suzanne's excellent advice we rented bikes and spent a day touring Assateague on wheels.

The boys chose a tandem which they promptly dubbed The Banana Machine.

Talk about male bonding! We all had a great time cycling. I pulled the two littlest girls in a kiddie cart aka The Bairn Box, the big girls rode regular bikes and Mary Rose enjoyed her tour on a tag-a-long.

The sights

were lovely.

 

My horse-loving girls were in equine heaven as right across the street from our hotel was a collection of Chincoteague ponies

just waiting to be fed and petted and nuzzled and scratched at any time of day or night.

We truly had a wonderful, wonderful time and it bears repeating so we'll just say it one more time:

!

Note there are additional photos in the albumn in my sidebar, including Michael's friend the  snapper.