Sunset after the storm's relent

Superlative and subtle Chincoteague sunset, seen since the storm slackened.

Pink and blue, echoed in the waters, a glowing good-bye to the day.

Deepening, darkening, diminishing - mixing into the marsh...

Evening overtakes us

after a satisfying Sunday.

Cheese-wagon takes on the encroaching swamp

The hurricane Ida nor'easter continues here at Chincoteague. After an especially bad evening tide, the causeway and Assateague Island were both closed. We are trapped! This morning we drove around the island in the Cheese-wagon to see what we could see while doing errands. Cheese-wagon is the name our girls called the Mommy-van/mini-van/kid-hauler. It fortunately has big wheels. This Cheese-wagon (our third) has made 3 trips to Texas, 4 trips to Manhattan, and countless trips to Chincoteague full of crap. I think we will always have one.

Here are a few pictures that will mean more to those who have been here. This shot, along Maddox Boulevard, shows the internal lake-ish sort of swamp that cannot drain while the high tides are around. The water encroaches on the road a bit.

Some of the internal streets are completely covered. Going slowly and having big Cheese-wagon wheels is important here. Priuses are not encouraged.

A lot of the older houses are surrounded completely. They should probably put up "No Wake" signs.

Memorial Park drains down the boat ramp. Wonder who was in charge of grading and drainage on this project.

Our turnoff is on the other side of that swamp/marsh mentioned above. There are two drains here, but they aren't big enough for this kind of storm.

A bit further on, the road disappears.

Then the marsh is right at the door of the Cheese-wagon.

"Neither rain nor snow", yadda yadda yadda apparently means nothing when you are on an island with the causeway closed. While you can still get to your box, it will be empty!

Inundated...

We are continuing to see the remains of Ida up close and personal down here in Chincoteague. It has become a nor'easter with a lot of power. There is still a ton of rain, and the wind is pretty fierce - about 55 mph. It is gusty and carries a lot of sand and water out at the beach. Here is the start of parking lot flooding that happened while we were there. It is not even high tide at this point.

As I stood there, almost being blown over, the job was completed. I took cover inside the van, shivering, to take this picture. We sure have seen a lot more Chincoteague and Assateague in the last few weeks than we had seen before.

Busy, busy, busy

Esther and I have both noticed that retirement seems to keep us busier than when we were employed. It just seems like there is a ton of stuff to do and plenty of places to go. It is nice in a way, but it does not leave much time to do anything serious. Maybe that is the point.

We started off our "weekend" with a last walk over at the Chincoteague Refuge Wildlife Loop. There is always something new and different there. This time it was a whole pile of pointy long curved nose birds (some kind of Ibis, I think).

Then, farther along the road, came a shocking disregard for logic. In a previous post I lamented the labeling of the "Closed Gate". Proceeding around the loop I found this travesty, an open gate still labeled as a "Closed Gate". I know the US government can do better. A proper gate is displayed toward the bottom of this post.

As the weekend drew near we got on the road to visit Dad. He was in unusually good spirits, happy to have had an infected tooth pulled. The antibiotics had erased what doctors referred to as polymyalgia. Dad had been limping around and experiencing back and leg pain for months, with no doctor able to provide relief. The antibiotics seem to have killed that off completely. He was ready to walk, one of his favorite activities.

We headed down to a local boy scout camp that the US Forest Service had taken over years before. Esther and I had never been there. The trail started out on a gravel road, but eventually petered out to a track down the hill. Dad (fresh from his 88th birthday) led us a merry chase all the way down to a washout just above Seneca Lake. This is a view of Queen Catherine's Castle. Queen Catherine was a local Seneca queen and matriarch who lived in the 1700s. Her castle was apparently recreated by local women with a "certain frame of mind". They gathered here to discuss topics of the day. I think they were on holiday from Seneca Falls. Anyway, this was a beautiful spot to gather.

All of the other Boy Scout buildings and facilities were removed by the Forest Service. Our local expert, Clay Grove (a former Forest Service manager), told us that they had been discussing upgrades to the site for a "quarter century", but they had not done a single thing. It would be a lovely place for campsites, a retreat, or any of a dozen other improvements.

Dad's walking was the best I have seen in quite a while.

He lead the way back up hill until Esther disappeared in a cloud of dust. This stretch of the road was very pleasant, running along the edge of a grape orchard.

This park had a proper closed gate installation. There is no "Closed Gate" stupidity going on here, just a pair of reflectors to let you know it is closed.

Anyway, we went on to hike up Taughannock Gorge later in the weekend. This place always amazes me. The gorge is beautiful any time of year.

The falls are spectacular from above or below.

Dad decided to have a fake Thanksgiving since we would not be there for the real one. One unsolicited addition was donated by Clay Grove from his garden. I ran down to pick up these trees before he took off to visit his daughter at Auburn University. The Brussels sprouts were so heavy I could hardly pick these up. The stalks were 2-3 inches thick. You either love these or hate them. We loved them. Note the Fibonacci spiral of the sprouts on the stalk!

My sister always provides a pie for Thanksgiving. This weekend was no different. One of my brothers baked a pumpkin pie. Peg baked a beautiful apple pie with a crumb top. Everybody eagerly began to try it, then stopped simultaneously. Somehow she had substituted two cups of salt for two cups of sugar!

Snow Goose Day at Assateague

We have been making a daily trip to Assateague to walk and watch the waves and wildlife. Today we were just leaving the beach when Esther remarked "Look at the geese!" Right behind the beach is a huge freshwater lagoon that normally has a few geese in it. Today it started with a few, but more and more kept coming.

We began to hear more and more honking, and could see many more flocks coming in to join the traffic pattern. More and more geese kept dropping into small spaces in the water.

They kept getting thicker and thicker in the air. Each flock would join at the top of what had to be a quarter mile stack of birds.

The flocks kept circling and circling, with each pass allowing a few to drop in and a few more to descend.

It was a captivating sight that had people stopping and gawking for 15 minutes or more, until every bird was down.

Assateague Island Waterfowl Week

The wildlife refuge sponsors a Waterfowl Week from 21-29 November. There are some unusual guided tours and other events. The winter migration will be in full swing then, but it has already begun.

I'm not a birder, but the refuge is noticeably busy with birds already. The snow geese have been here for a week or maybe longer.

Most birds seem to get along alright, with minor exceptions. This blue heron stood on the edge of the road on the Wildlife Loop for a long time.

Then he ghosted over to a small pool already inhabited by an egret. For a while they stalked together.

Then the heron became a stinker, chasing off the egret.

Who then lunched on her own.

And, to finish up, wishing to leave no thoughtless idiocy unmentioned, I wonder where they hang the "Open Gate" sign? It's probably as confusing as this one... Makes me wonder why there is no "Service Road sign" sign.

It's a slippery slope when you start to label the world. What do you do about the Arabic version of "Closed Gate" (البوابة المغلقة), or the one for Belarus  (закрытых варотах), or Thai (ประตูปิด). The refuge gets visitors from all over the world, you know. Maybe others are confused about what a "Closed Gate" looks like, too.

Assateague asses and other wildlife

Your tax dollars at work department

I have always enjoyed seeing my tax dollars at work. It gives me great pleasure to see people pissing away money on stuff I wouldn't dream of doing. It warms the cockles of my heart to see the US government handing out OUR MONEY with one hand and taking it in on the other. Here, at the entrance to Assateague Island and the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, the irony level was amazingly high for the last few days.

So, what did they spend OUR MONEY on? Yon sandy brown covered up hole in the ground now contains a new water pipe and a broadband cable that stretch all the way to park headquarters. Plus, for added benefit (and perhaps greener grass), money was spent on several truckloads of topsoil to put OVER THE DAMN SAND that is all that is naturally there. Of course, in some areas of the island there is also some pine duff and some slimy stuff on the bottoms of ponds. But anywhere you dig you get SAND. So why did we put expensive topsoil on top of the sand?

"Suffering" in retirement

All those planning retirement, beware! It seems poor in spirit and very unsporting, taking advantage of old people, but it goes on. Early on in our retirement we learned, painfully, that when HR says you will have the "same" health coverage you always had, they DO NOT mean it. What they failed to tell us was that, while it was the SAME coverage, it COSTS A HELL OF A LOT MORE. In fact, it eats up a huge portion of their pension check. To me, that makes it NOT THE SAME! Well, we dealt with that and moved on.


Recently we moved from our New Jersey residence down to Chincoteague, Va. In the last few posts you can see part of the why. It is beautiful. When we reported our move, however, we were told that the (health) plan would change. It was reported that the changes would be minor ("VIRTUALLY THE SAME"), and a report was promised. Since the report had not come, Esther inquired. Well, the changes ARE NOT MINOR. We are going from copay to deductible and 85% coverage for doctor visits. That also is NOT THE SAME to me. So Esther asked for a list of coverage in various areas and eventually got the assurance that it would come in the package to be mailed. Then she was told that it would take 48 hours to act on, followed by 10 days to get the package. I wish I had been on the phone, because I really care about ponies. I wanted to ask whether they would feed the ponies while the freaking PONY EXPRESS was delivering their package! Down in Chincoteague we take care of our ponies and want everyone elsewhere to do that, too.

Thanks for participating in this RANT. Warning: there may be more.

And, a bit of the wildlife loop

We were finally able to walk out on Assateague. For a change, we tried out the Assateague Wildlife Loop. Some of the other areas were closed due to hunting. This loop is about 3 miles, ranging around a huge, shallow, fresh-water pond designed to support wildfowl migrations. This time of year it is just starting to get busy. Later on there is a wildfowl week, when migrations are in full swing. Here are a few sights from today.

I'm not sure why, but there were a lot of large insects around, like this grasshopper. It seemed a bit cool for them to be so energetic, but grasshoppers hopped, crickets jumped, and dragon flies flitted around.

The egrets seemed kind of jumpy, flying from place to place

just to go fishing all over again.

There was even a cast of vultures. Yep, "cast" is one of the collective names for vultures. It is used in the same way as "murder" of crows.

A wee bit of Chincoteague drama

Today dawned gorgeous for a change. The dismal rain seems to be over for now. Sun on water, the Assateague lighthouse, and the wildlife reign again. At about 7:30AM a heron landed on the dock, then, under seagull supervision, jumped in the water to go fishing.

Like most Chincoteague visitors he came up with a blue crab. I find them painful to eat, but the heron didn't!

He flew up to the dock to finish his meal, with the suffering seagull right behind.

Then they both decided to take in the warm sun in a very picturesque setting, while I began to stalk them.

I was able to get halfway up the dock without disturbing them.

By then some other contributors had gathered. I believe these little guys were the shotgun subjects of the Chincoteaguers skiffs the other day.

As I turned to go back inside my main subject decided he wasn't "heron" about it anymore and left. The set of the wings is just plain beautiful.