After a couple of days of museums, it was definetely time for a road trip....so hub and I rented a car and headed out to Chincoteague.
Chincoteague island (pronounced shin co teague) is south of Delaware and in the crazy part of the original colonies....where one minute you're in Maryland, a mile later you're in Deleware, and a few miles down you're in Virginia.
I absolutely wanted/needed to go to the ocean for the afternoon....but I also specifically wanted to go to Chincoteague because of the ponies...no no I'm not such a horse person.......BUT....when I was in third grade.....I had a nasty bout of Scarlet Fever.....which kept me home for weeks.....my dad went to the library and brought home every book they had on horses....(and mules).....Brighty....Black Stallion....and of course....Misty from Chincoteague.
I spent a couple of weeks devouring all these horsey books.... I swear they seeded me.....because years later.....when I started my life as a nurse in Seattle....I headed for the gorgeous valleys outside the city and actually took horseback riding lessons for a summer.
Sometimes I was stuperous when I got on the horses....because I worked nights in ICU.....and never slept well. Midway through summer, they paired me with an old cantankerous horse named "Yellow" who was miserable to ride...and saddle (he would purposely puff his belly up with air when I tried to cinch the belt ....then when the trainer came by to inspect my work before mounting him....he would exhale and make the saddle slip...so the trainer would scold me.....which I believe was part of his diabolical plan.)
At the end of the lesson, if the weather was nice, we were allowed to "let'em loose" and gallop in the fields......that's when this mean old horse and I.....somehow.....got in sync....we just "clicked"...even the trainer noticed it....and shook his head....at us....the odd couple...a city girl and a old broken horse....which for a short period of time.....made music.
After that experience, I could understand why people loved horses.....and I glimpsed .....the near spiritual aspects of being in harmony with a big powerful animal you were joined to and with physically and emotionally.
I did see the ponies when we got to the island.....far off in the distant....enough to smile at the book memory and make me think of that mean old horse....who let me feel a bit of heaven .....if he felt like it.
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