Kiptopeke State Park,VA

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Kiptopeke State Park, VA

* The map is not showing this in the right place.  This state park is off of route 13 on the eastern shore of Virginia just before crossing the Cheasapeake Bay Bridge from the north.

^{.Monday - April 21 - Left Assateague Island around 9 in the morning and drove down to the Virginia side of Assateague Island and stopped into the Chincoteague Wildlife Refuge on Chincoteague Island. The famous children’s book about the horse Misty was written about this island. It was very interesting the visitors centers are well worth the stop and we saw these beaches which are also beautiful. Again we used our golden age passes to get in – sometimes it’s great to be over 62. We found that this is so much more commercial than the Maryland side. Signs up everywhere and the little town to get into the Refuge was small; a lot of little bridges but advertisements and shops everywhere. Only private campgrounds here so we had not planned to stay and I was glad because some of it is honky tonk but not the Refuge itself!}

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    ^{We saw the wild ponies again along the road and on some hikes. This herd is owned by the fire station on the island (they pay the NPS grazing fees for the horses) and they are fenced in from the Maryland herd and taken care of by a vet and every July they have their famous roundup that takes the horses swimming across a channel to the town to be put up for auction. Any not sold are returned to the Wildlife Refuge to keep the herd manageable. Only the strongest adults are taken to auction. It was interesting to read about this and it helps to support the fire station in this small town of Chincoteague... We left here and continued down route 13 to just before the Bay Bridge to cross to Norfolk, VA to stay a night at Kiptopeke State Park in Cape Charles.}

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    Kiptopeke State Park, Cape Charles, Virginia -123 sites- $31 with electricity and water and cable- Site 65- April 21

I had heard good things about this state park just before you go over the Bay Bridge in Virginia to Norfolk so we had to stay here. The rangers were very nice at check in and we arrived on a semi rainy day during the week so had no problems getting a site. The bathrooms were big and clean but the showers have no place to hang-up your towels or clothes or changing area.

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There are a number of walks to take and a beautiful beach with soft sand. A fishing pier that overlooks the bay with shipwrecks lined up and the bay bridge in the distance. This is a migratory bird flyway stopover for a number of birds on their way south or north. During the Fall there are thousands of birds who land here of all types including butterflies. There are over four miles of trails or hiking, bird watching and biking. We enjoyed our stopover here but would really like to return in the fall for the bird migration. I was told you need reservations for that time period and it is a good idea to have them for the summer and weekends. Very quiet here today so George is taking a nap and taking his blood pressure which gets better every day.