Horses, Harbours and Happenings:Steve and Sue visit Chincoteague and Hilton Head, May 2009! - COMPLETE - Page 4 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Great update, is this where Steve gets his nap? I know I would need one after all you have already done on this day and now more to come! Well, tell us!
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After a brief nap (for Steve) and a coffee (for me), we decided to walk around town and think about dinner. I wanted to try a place called "Steamers" (all you can eat seafood) that we had passed on our way to Assateague, but for some reason, Steve didn't want to try it. They had none-seafood stuff, but he picked out the Chincoteague Inn. What he REALLY wanted was to go back to Don's for more prime rib, but I told him we could do that tomorrow, but I wanted to try some different places, too! He is truly a creature of habit, which is why we end up at Tony's every single Disney trip.
Since the Chicoteague Inn was within walking distance, we started down Main Street. We wanted to see the town, anyway. We wandered down to the canal. It's sort of hard to tell from these pictures, but the bridge had been open and a large boat had just passed through. These were as it was closing:
The road coming off the bridge T's into Main Street, and folks needing to leave the island can only do so through this bridge. So, needless to say, on Memorial Day weekend, traffic was pretty darned backed up! We knew we were in a small town, though, because the fire police were out directing traffic!
This is the park:
There was a festival going on in the park. The music had just ended, but there were vendors, picnicers, and lots of locals!
The pavilion:
The walkway had dedications on it:
We walked back up to Main Street and I took some more pictures of this lovely island town:
We stopped in this store and bought a map of the area which had been designed and signed by Maureen Beebe's daughter-in-law, Zoe. Maureen was one of the two children in the book "Misty" who became Misty's owners.
This mural adorned two walls around a small clearing:
Locals:
Loved this in a store window, done by a local artist:
And this is Misty:
There was about a 10 minute wait at the Chincoteague Inn. We later found out that this because they only had three waitresses working that night!
We were seated pretty quickly, and took a look at the menu. It looked pretty good, but then our waitress mentioned the buffet. Oh? Can we check it out first? So we trotted up and in an instant decided....BUFFET!!!
The buffet was all you can eat. They had clam chowder, steamers, haddock, peel and eat shrimp, crab legs, prime rib, chicken, potatoes, salads, and a few more things that I can't remember.
This was Steve's first trip up:
The food was very good, but a little cold. The variety made up for that. I ate a ton of steamers, shrimp and crab legs. We enjoyed dinner as the sun went down. I left Steve to pay the bill as I took my camera out on the narrow walkway that surrounds the restaurant:
More locals:
Steve wanted to explore this boat for some reason. I had to remind him that it wasn't his!
The restaurant from the street:
We walked back towards our B & B. We weren't really hungry, but what is vacation without dessert? So we stopped at an ice cream shop called Muller's that had come highly recommended.
We gave our order to the women behind the counter:
Steve got a waffle with mint chocolate chip and butter pecan ice cream, I got a cone with muddy sneakers and coconut. We paid, and went into the "scooping" area, where I noticed the guy behind the counter had on....WHAT???
A Philadelphia Eagles hat??? Naturally, I had to ask him about that, and at that, he made the other worker turn around to show us his Philadelphia Phillies hat!
Wait a minute....where are you guys from?
Well, this was a family run business. Mom had taken our order, Dad had the Eagles cap on and one of his sons had the Phillies cap on! The other son was hatless. They had lived in Philly for many years and got tired of the rat race, so four years ago they moved down here and opened a budsiness. They loved the area, but were still diehard Philly sports fans!
It was cool to meet some folks from "back home"!
Wow!
After our dessert, we said goodbye to our new friends and walked back to our room. It had been a long and exciting day, and tomorrow, we were planning some more fun!
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The next morning we were up early. Since it was the middle day of the three day weekend yesterday, the street noise continued until about 2 AM! That was our only complaint with the B & B. I actually got a bit more sleep than Steve. He was pretty tired, but ready for the day, anyway. I went to the porch for our coffee, and noticed a few things I hadn't noticed before:
Lin and Sam provide beach gear for their guests, free of charge:
They also provide chairs and bikes!
This room has a private balcony. We are going to reserve this one when we come back:
It's on the back, away from the street.
Breakfast this morning was juice, coffee, fresh baked muffins, flan, waffles, bacon and sausage:
The rose on the plate was picked that morning from Lin's garden!
We were soon on the road and heading off the island. Today's adventures included NASA, Assateague Island on the Maryland side, and Ocean City.
We crossed the bridge and drove the short distance to NASA. This facility is Wallop's Island, named after an early explorer of the Chincoteague area. It is primarily a rocket and satellite launch area. They had a small visitor's center that was FREE! It was a bit overcast today, and you can see that in some of the pictures.
It was Memorial Day, so the flag was at half mast:
Inside, we found a surprising amount of NASA history, and not just about Wallop's Island! I am a certified space geek (I will finally be getting NASA TV when we get our satellite system in ) so I was in my glory!
Pictures of Wallop's Island:
Some of the displays:
We walked into another room, where a strangely familiar sight awaited us:
In the middle of the room was a spinning earth, which acted as a video screen showcasing a program on earth conservation. Hmmmm...I had heard that Disney and NASA shared technology, but I never expected to find a replica of the Illuminations globe at a NASA facitily in Virginia! :
Loved this sign:
Ready to go:
From there, we went up to the roof top observation platform. You couldn't see as much as I hoped you could, but it was cool none-the-less!
I hope this isn't what my roof top satellite dish looks like:
We really enjoyed this stop (Steve won't admit it, but I've made him a bit of a space geek, too! ). We stayed about an hour, and then headed down the road.
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We knew we were in a small town, though, because the fire police were out directing traffic! 
PassPorter Guide Author
I had to remind him that it wasn't his! 
Naturally, I had to ask him about that, and at that, he made the other worker turn around to show us his Philadelphia Phillies hat!
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