final week (hopefully)

Today, December 1, marks the one month point for time spent in Virginia.

Last night, I was sitting in my paradise, watching gilmore girls and sewing, when, all of a sudden, a siren starts sounding. The siren was reminiscent of the tornado warning sirens we used to hear in Wisconsin. Tornado on Chincoteague? Not likely, but maybe it is a warning for some sort of other severe weather? Also, if it was a tornado I was pretty much out of luck, seeing as how the house is up on stilts and there is definitely not a basement. I checked weather.com and there was nothing to take note of, so I have no idea what was going on. For all I know it could have meant the wild ponies were running rampant on the island.

Killer Ponies!

I had a lovely weekend on Chincoteague. On friday night I managed to go to sleep at 9pm. I was in a room in the main house because Jim and Jean had already rented the apartment before I asked them for it. It worked out really nicely though, and I had my own area which was good. They really are amazing people, and it was nice to be around some others for the weekend. They cooked dinner for me friday night, delicious pasta and shrimp. I also got to have dinner with them on saturday, which was wildly delicious, including some magical chocolate cake, which I will try to duplicate sometime.

Saturday morning the weather was quite nice, so I went for a run. A 2.7 mile run actually. Which is my new longest ever, actually. When I got back I took a bath in this cool old fashioned bathtub, which was also quite nice. The rest of the day it rained, so I was glad I got out when I did. On the plus side, the rainy dreary weather made it the perfect day to watch a lot of gilmore girls and also get some reading done.

Sunday was a beautiful day. I got up at a reasonable hour and did some birding with Jim and Jean. They get quite an assortment of shore-type birds right in their backyard (not really surprising). I saw no less than a cormorant, a bald eagle, two varieties of egrets, and a kingfisher. What can I say, a girl loves to make her mother proud. Then I went to church with the locals. In the afternoon I borrowed a sweet bike from Jim and Jean and rode out to the refuge. I finally hunted down those elusive wild ponies I've been hearing so much about. It was a shining moment for me and the blue beach cruiser. Unfortunately I have no pictures, because I did not bring my camera, because I'm a free spirit like that. I'll try to take some pictures next weekend.