Day 8-Pony Penning Day!Jul 25, 2012
|
|
on Grandpa's shoulders getting pictures
the ponies swimming
ponies getting closer to us on Chincoteague
| We woke about 7 am. We had a quick breakfast of cereal. Hopped on our bikes and at 8am we rode down to where we saw a bunch of people. We couldn’t see anything from there so we walked out in a muddy mush through the marsh grass to the shore. It was stinky but felt good between my toes. We got a pretty good spot. There were a lot of people there. We stood around for about an hour; my feet hurt and we didn’t bring chairs and we had to stand in the sun for about an hour. Finally, the red flare went off and that announced that the ponies were ready to get in the water. They were waiting for the tide to go down so the ponies could swim better and the water is less deep. Grandpa put me on his shoulders so I could see above the people. It was so cool to see the ponies. First, I saw a big group of heads, then their ears and mane as they got closer. The ponies came in right by us. The foals were so cute, they looked happy to eat the marsh grass. They call the people who round up the ponies saltwater cowboys. We had to walk back thru the muck to our bikes. See the pictures of our muddy feet! We rode back to the campground and waited for an hour. We washed off our feet. Then we rode our bikes back to the road at the end of the campground to watch the ponies go thru town to the carnival ground pens. The ponies looked tired. We went back to the campground and had lunch. After lunch, Grandpa and I went to the beach. We bought surfing (boogie) boards and swam in the Atlantic Ocean and there were waves so we did boogie board surfing. I had several wipeouts! It was so much fun! I buried half my body in the sand. We stayed at the beach for 3 hours. When we left, we had to stop and return Grandpa’s board because it broke in half. Grandma had stayed at the campground to work on planning the next part of the trip and work on updating the blog! We came back to camp and had cheese and crackers. We got ready for our 6pm cruise around Chincoteague and Assateague Islands. Our captain was CPT Dan. It was a pontoon boat and there were 3 other people on it. We saw dolphins, bald eagles and wild ponies. We didn’t really expect to see any ponies because we thought they were all rounded up. But we saw 3: 2 were stallions still there because the saltwater cowboys aren’t as worried about getting stallions as much as the mares and foals so if they miss them, it’s OK. The other pony was a mare. She’d had a foal on an island separated from the herd a couple of days ago. The island doesn’t have much water for her to drink so the foal was drinking her milk and she couldn’t replenish it so she was dying. CPT Dan saw her and the foal and called a friend with the fire department (they take care of the ponies). They came and took the foal and CPT Dan was bringing her fresh water to drink. We brought her some more. When we saw her, she was looking better and even though she was still bony, CPT Dan said she would be OK. The cruise was really fun. I loved it. We got back at 8:45pm. We went out for pizza at Famous pizza. My favorite thing today was seeing the ponies swimming and going thru town. It was the funest day ever!!! |
Advertisement 
|
