Play Misty for me

Cape May, New Jersey to Chincoteague, Virginia. Monday, March 9, 2026

OK, show of hands. How many of you have read the book Misty of Chincoteague? Those of you with your hands up, how many of you are women? I’m not saying, I’m just saying.

Conversely, I suspect the male/female ratio would be reversed among those who have seen the Clint Eastwood movie, Play Misty For Me. But I might be wrong. This was the first movie where Clint played against type as a sensitive radio disc jockey being stalked by an obsessed fan.

Finally, I imagine both genders found this classic clip from Cheers to be hilarious, with Cliff trying to woo Diane by singing Misty. https://youtu.be/CZm_2_raG0s?si=6u_63vMDgX_JLHan

We played Misty ourselves, as an audiobook since we were headed for Chincoteague. The story of the intrepid foal sired by wild Assateague ponies was touching, but a little too syrupy for our tastes. We did want to see the ponies though.

So it was in the summer of ’78, when I backpacked with two friends the entire length of Assateague Island National Seashore,

28 miles of pristine beach with no roads or facilities in between, we each carried 2 gallons of water. We thought for sure we would see those fabled wild ponies. But we saw none until the end, where a herd of them were clustered around a feeding trough by the road.

Legend has it that the ponies were descended from fine Spanish horses that were the only survivors of a galleon shipwrecked off the island in the 1500s, who swam to shore and lived there for generations, gradually growing smaller because of the poor nutrition from seagrass. More likely, they were just escapees from local farmers who pastured some of their herd on the island.

Growing up in DC, Assateague was the only beach I ever went to. Most of my friends went to Rehobeth or Bethany Beaches, or Ocean City. I saw Rehoboth for the first time today, quite nice, but way too commercialized. Cape Henlopen was more like it, and also an important landmark, the end of the American Discovery Trail. My friends Eric and Ellen had scouted this coast to coast trail back in 1990, and it was cool to see where they finished, 5,057 miles after leaving Point Reyes, California. Funny, I’d only crossed it twice on my coast to coast route, in Indiana and Colorado.

The final quarter mile. That last “victory” photo is only half fraudulent, I did bike across the country, but not on the ADT.

Just before arriving at Chincoteague, we passed Wallops Island Flight Facility, where NASA launches satellites and weather balloons, but it was closed today. This is a web photo.

It was foggy and windy when we arrived on Chincoteague, we took a 24 mile bike loop through the dunes, marshes, and the small town, but the only view we got of the ponies was this one, far in the distance and penned up by the Park Service for the winter. Not so wild after all.

I guess in the end, my romantic visions of Misty fared no better than Cliff’s did.

24 miles, 75 total. 68 feet climbed, time 3 hours with stops.

©️ 2026 Scott Luria