Thursday - last morning on Assateague Island

We were packing up to leave on Thursday morning when suddenly we noticed "visitors" in the campground...

Like a parade along the campground road...

Passing right in front of Gracie...

Heading on down and around the corner...

The same 5 ponies we had seen before...

Including the young one...

They headed over to site where the white class B camper van was parked next to us... (note that our picnic table right next to our spot had a lockable storage area under the middle to be able to store food so that the horses cannot access it)...

They obviously noticed the open back door and poked their heads in to check out the contents...

The day before, we had talked with the couple whose van it was. This was the first time they had been to Assateague, they were visiting from Charleston, and both yesterday and today had left their van wide open...

One by one, each of the ponies checked out the van...

One went around to the front, but none went to the door on the side.

Eventually the parade continued to the next section of the Oceanside Campground sites.

As if they were on their assigned route!

Note: see comment at end of blog from yesterday on Carl's opinion about the "hired actors" of wild ponies on the island: https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2021/10/an-extra-day-on-assateague-island.html

About 30 minutes later, another single horse came through... it ignored the campervan, but headed across to the next part of the campground as if on the same route as the first 5.

Before we left, I took a picture the walk over the dunes to the viewing area across from our site.

Some interesting rigs down the way from us...

Zoomed in -- one of the rigs was a Jeep with a tent contraption on top and a wide awning extending out from the driver's side and back of the Jeep -- the other was a class B van parked on the same site. They must have been parked in a different campsite on Tuesday night, because on Wednesday, they drove over to this site in our campground with the tent and awning all set up on top of the Jeep (obviously could not have driven very far).

After we got all packed up and hooked up, as we were driving out of the campground in Gracie, we saw the last horse which had come through now passing by on the outer campground road...

... obviously totally disregarding the One Way sign! Carl said he was on his way back to the trailer to be carried back to the stable (see Carl's pony explanation from yesterday)...

We drove a relatively short distance south on the eastern shore -- stopping for groceries at a Walmart in Pokomoke City, Maryland, before arriving at our next campground, a Thousand Trails campground, Virginia Landing, near Quinby, Virginia.

View out the front -- that's the Atlantic just beyond the dune or sea grass. "Remote" is a good description of our location.