We have longed for years to go to Chincoteague. I "discovered" the location of the island when my husband first took me to Colonial Williamsburg when we were first married.  Then when my kids were little, I read the Misty and Stormy books to them and we longed to go to Chincoteague and see the ponies.  When we took the kids to Virginia in 2004, we tried to work in Chincoteague but it was a loaded trip and had to let it go.  Then last spring my husband went TDY to Maryland for a few weeks (which ended up becoming the stepping stone for his current job at the Pentagon).  On the weekend he went to Chincoteague...while we were stuck in Texas!  We were devastated! Since we were planning a vacation to Virginia, my husband told me to work Chincoteague into the schedule, but once again there simply wasn't enough time to an already loaded trip.  Chincoteague is not the easiest place to get to, so we let it go. When we crossed the bridge into Chincoteague, we felt that we had arrived in more ways than one.    

     First stop after arriving in Chincoteague was lunch. I had packed a picnic lunch, which we ate at a little park overlooking the channel and marsh we had just crossed.  I was surprised that I was chilly!  We recently moved to Virginia from Texas, and I am still not used to getting chilly in July and August.  After we ate we walked around, partly so I could warm up. 

     We went straight to the Misty statue. 

     After checking into our hotel,we went to the Chincoteague Pony Center where we got to see some of the wild ponies who had made the swim and had been purchased.

Now they are tame.

This one ran straight for me when he saw me take a picture of him.

Then he reached out to sniff me and let me pet him.

     As glad as I was to see the ponies, I was disheartened to see them cooped up in a little corral. Next stop was the Beebe Ranch. This is the family represented in Misty of Chincoteague.  As we walked in to the house, we were greeted by Mrs. Beebe! Her husband is cousin to Paul and Maureen, and he was another grandson of Grandpa Beebe. When Marguerite Henry wrote Misty of Chincoteague, she lived with the Beebes for a while and watched the interaction of the family with the ponies.  Having fallen in love with Misty at Pony Penning Day, she purchased Misty and took her home with her on the mainland while she continued writing the book.  Later, Marguerite Henry let Misty return to Chincoteague for breeding purposes.  By this time, Mr. Beebe, the cousin took care of Misty at this property.  We got to tour the barn

and see a short movie on Misty and the Beebe Ranch connection. 

We got to see their ponies, one of which is a Misty descendent.  

      Here I was glad to see that they had a real pasture and space to roam. 

     Then we went back to the house to "see" Misty...

...and Stormy!

Do you know Stormy?  She is Missy's baby. The kitchen of this house is where Missy was sheltered during the terrible Northeaster that flooded the islands in 1962.  This catastrophic weather event, Misty and the Beebes were all featured in the of National Geographic Magazine. Misty was pregnant while she stayed in the kitchen during the storm. That baby was Stormy. Mr. Beebe is the one who put Misty in the kitchen during this storm. But in the books, it's Paul and Maureen, since those were the characters that were already established. But many of the events that took place in the book really happened with Misty and Mr. Beebe.  

     After the tour, I talked to Mrs. Beebe and my husband talked to Mr. Beebe.  The museum had closed and we needed to let them go, but they kept asking if we had questions. So we did! After a few pony questions, I told her how I loved Virginia and Colonial Williamsburg, etc, etc, etc.  She enjoys Colonial Williamsburg as much as I do. She gave me lots of touring tips. We found that we all had a lot in common.  

     As we were driving around town we saw a sight that was hilarious!  I pulled my camera out but my husband made a turn before I could snap it.  You know the children's picture book, Make Way for Ducklings? We saw that with geese!  There must have been fifty of them lined up on the sidewalk in front of one of the houses on Main Street, waiting their turn to cross our path on the street. How I wish I got a picture of that!       

Then we parked our van at the hotel and walked around town.

 One of the shops we went into was a wine shop.  My husband called me over for the wine tasting.  Someone else was supposed to be in charge of the tasting, but she hadn't yet showed  up. So a gentleman was in charge.  As he poured, he looked at me and asked if I spoke Spanish.  Yes!  (Well, not really, but I can pronounce it and talk a little!)  There were four bottles of Spanish wine, none of which he could pronounce. So he had me read the bottles for him. Spanish wine, at least these bottles,  is really dry.

    Since we had a free hotel room, we wanted to splurge on a seafood dinner.  Gotta have seafood at the beach. We had made reservations as had been recommended, and it was finally time to eat. We decided to share plates so we ordered 2 platters of steamed oysters, clams, snow crab, blue crab, stone crab and shrimp. The waitress had to teach us how to open the blue crab. She kept coming to check on us as we were really quiet and intent on cracking all those shells. Sometimes we were laughing at the mess and I could easily imagine the kids at the other tables asking their parents, "Why do those people play with their food?"

     While I was cracking shells, I happened to overhear one word from the table next to me.  That one word made me stop to wonder if I had really heard what I thought I heard.  No, it couldn't be.  That man who followed us all through school in history and literature this past year, week after week, followed us on vacation. I looked at my daughter and she exclaimed, "They are talking about Napoleon!" Incredulously, we started our own conversation about Napoleon.  So there were two tables, side by side, in a seafood restaurant, on Chincoteague Island, talking about Napoleon.