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
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
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!
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:
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
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!
Registered Message Board Members Get Our Free Newsletter! When you register you'll have the option to sign up for our weekly PassPorter Newsletter. It's chock-full of feature articles; news; tips; contests; photos; and special offers in our online store.
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.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
About This Page: 
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
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!
:
Linear Mode
