Wild Ponies!

I've been wanting to make it over to Chincoteague forever to see the wild ponies, but we've just never had the chance. I was pleasantly surprised the day after our lovely foodie extravaganza in southwest Virginia when Troy told me we were close to a different park that has wild ponies.

Grayson Highlands State Park is gorgeous. First we took a hike to work off some of that food. We were rewarded with some cool temps and a spectacular view!

And then on the way to the pony-watching trail, we saw these two little cuties. No mama in sight though. :(

We weren't even sure we'd see the ponies but it didn't take long to spot a group of them right amongst a group of people. I guess they aren't really "wild." They've grown accustomed to humans. The foals were especially tame, letting little kids feed them grass and strawberries that they had picked. The kids were giggling as the ponies licked their fingers. It was pretty sweet. I was thinking of Ian and Elsa and my little niece Amelia, and how much they would have liked it.

Even though you aren't supposed to feed the ponies, people do. A random woman (who obviously thought she was being nice) shoved a handful of pretzels into Troy's hand before he could protest. When he tried to get rid a pretzel, two of the grown ponies started to get aggressive towards each other. We were only steps away so it was a little frightening. It seems important to remember that these are not domesticated animals!

We spotted a huge group later that was interspersed with what looked like a number of brand new foals. It was fun to watch them play and groom each other.

The very pregnant pony below was pretty sweet. She started staring at us and then came over after a while. Troy gave her the rest of those prized pretzels even though I was a bit afraid the other ponies would smell them and start a stampede.

Then she started following us around. She looked like she was about to give birth at any minute so it made me kind of nervous, but it was still pretty endearing.