Greatest State Park/Wildlife Refuge

Voted the "best Hampton Inn in the country," I could surely see why. The rooms were clean, the food was decent, but best of all, we had a view of the waterfront and the crab-trapping boats.

We went here for all our meals while we were in Chincoteague, even though it's about a mile and a half outside of the city. It's worth it. Everything is fried, fresh, and delicious. My favorite was the order of crab cakes ($14.95 for two succulent, deep-fried crabcakes made from thick crabmeat, deep-fried hushpuppies, and a salad). But the shrimp was also delicious, as well as the sauces. Mmmmm! Captain Ray Twiford, who founded the restaurant, began selling from his roadside stands in North Carolina under the sign, "Get fresh with me--you'll love it."

Jay Cherrix has been leading this tour for over a decade, and his family has lived on Chincoteague for 300 years. He's the first and only native professional sea-kayak guide.

Our trip left at 6:30am, but there's another trip that leaves at 6pm. You need to call ahead, because the times may vary depending on the weather and sunrise/sunset times. We paddled the flatwater and marshlands between Chincoteague and Assateague islands. We saw many varieties of shellfish and birds. We even saw a bald eagle fly right over us with a fish in her mouth to her nest. Finally, we saw a group of wild ponies in Assateague frolicking in the sand at the edge of the water.

Jay was very knowledgeable about the parks, the environment, the marshland critters, and politics. Jay is a member of Citizens for the Preservation of Assateague (CPA), which was founded in December, 2002. See www.saveassateague.org. CPA was formed to fight the National Park Service to keep development and private enterprise off Assateague Island. According to Jay, the NPS is trying to give the federal lands to developers to build high-end condos. Jay has mortgaged his home to help pay for his fight with the government.

The bus tour is the only way to see the wild ponies on the Virginia side (the park "conveniently" blocked off the road to the ponies for all transportation and bikes, except for the park bus), so a ticket is necessary. Also, there are no mosquitoes on the air-conditioned bus, which was a nice break from those little terrors. The tour is led by volunteers. Our volunteer lived several hours outside of Chincoteague and was a little flighty, but nice. We went by the lighthouse and saw many birds, turtles, and Asian elks (which look like baby deer).

But the highlight, of course, was the wild ponies. Both the Virginia side and the Maryland side of Assateague are permitted to have 150 ponies. These ponies had their babies a few weeks before we arrived, so we got to see the wild ponies, as well as the babies frolicking in the fields. Every year at the end of July (this July it will be the 80th year), Chincoteague has the annual pony swim and auction. The ponies swim from Assateague to Chincoteague Island, and the Chincoteague Fire Department then sells the baby ponies at a giant auction that attracts up to 50,000 people. The Chincoteague endearingly say that their fire department is the richest in the country because of the pony sales.