After reaching Panorama Point, we continued to Rapid City, South Dakota to hang out for a few days – if you have been reading my blog for a while, you know I was in Rapid City last year to see the sights and hike Harney Peak which is the South Dakota high point. My dad had never been to the area so we spent some time exploring.
I LOVE this metal art in the town we drove through on the way to the Crazy Horse Memorial.
“Do you realize we have driven for 3 days and over 1500 miles and still didn’t get to any of the state highpoints yet?” my dad pointed out.
It was true – my Dad and I planned a road trip and we were supposed to go to Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois to visit those highpoints, but they were calling for some crazy storms in that area so we decided to just keep driving and hit Nebraska, North Dakota, Iowa and Illinois instead.
In 2013 I went to visit my best friend who moved to Arizona. While I was there she took me to the small town of Oatman, Arizona. She knew too well I would LOVE it there – it used to be a gold mining town along Route 66, now it’s a tourist attraction where they have “wild west” shootouts. Jen knew I would be most interested in seeing the wild burros that come in from the desert where the tourists can feed them. At night the burros go back into the desert.
Chances are when you were younger you had to read Misty of Chincoteague in school. This is the story about a wild pony from Assateague Island that was bought on Pony Penning day – a yearly roundup of the horses on Assateague by the Saltwater Cowboys where the horses swim across the bay onto Chincoteague Island and sold at auction. When I found out Assateague and Chincoteague were real places, the childhood girl inside me would not be happy until I visited! 🙂
It wasn’t until a few years ago I actually got to go to Assateague Island, which is split up into sections. Assateague is one long skinny island – Assateague State Park and Assateague National Seashore are on the Maryland side and the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge is on the southern Virginia part of the island. There is no road that goes the length of the entire island, but you can access both sides by bridges. I have only ever been to the Maryland side which offers various forms of camping, kayak and canoe rentals, hiking and biking trails, beaches, bays and WILD PONIES!! What’s not to love? Well if you go in the summer, be prepared for a TON of bugs – all of the biting variety for one. I’m not kidding, the first time I was there I hiked the “Life of the Forest Trail” and literally RAN through it because if I would stop I was immediately swarmed by mosquitos and horse flies – it was unreal! But NOTHING was gonna stop me from seeing those wild ponies! 🙂
blisters and bug bites 