Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Trazzler "On the Road" Contest - Be a dear, and vote please!

Happy September! And happy rainy, productive mid-week morning, to that. If I might ask a favor from anyone who happens upon this, I've just entered a writing contest over at Trazzler, a travel writing site where users write reviews of places, all places, and things to see. This particular contest had to do with forgotten places, hidden places, places one might happen along when, yes, you guessed it, on the road.

It took me a minute to think of where to write about. It's a place I've been thinking about quite a bit lately. A place I've been to twice; the first time, after a trip to nearby Wiliamsburg, Virginia, on a quest to continue to follow the stories I read in books, we headed up north towards Norfolk and under the bay towards Chincoteague Island, where we stood on a wild winter beach on Assateague Island, surrounded by dunes and sea grass and wind and whispers of wild animals, birds, and sea creatures. Virginia, place of stories - we had started in the home of Felicity, American Girl, but also Jamestown, and Monticello, sites of American history, and ended at the home of Misty of Chincoteague.

Chincoteague was the town time forgot, in a purposeful way; the townsfolk had made sure of the lack of chain restauraunts and hotels and when we went back, we instead stayed in a cottage, with geese and gulls in the yard, and a plank dock that stretched out yards into the Chesapeake Bay. My sister and I spent delightful hours attaching string to chicken necks and tossing them off the edge, laying down to watch the crabs scuttle towards them, in the clear few feet of bay water. We'd quietly, slowly pull them up towards us, up out of the water, and then shout for dad to handle the snapping claws, and ultimately, handle them for dinner.

Come to think of it, I was a rather picky eater back then and I think I refused to eat our fresh caught crab. Mistake I should always regret, but I was not afraid of the ice cream and waffles and the local ice cream shop, and I do remember braving a fried clam or two from my dad's dinner at a seafood restaurant.

Oh, there were so many things to be done; my sister and I rented a tandem bike one day and rode it to the beach (a battle I'll never forget), and watched as people crabbed and fished in the salt marshes the drew the divide between populated Chincoteague, and wilder, oceanside Assateague.

Assateague, where the wild ponies lived.

As much as it kills me not to finish a story, I have to take this moment to implore the reader to visit http://www.trazzler.com/trips/chincoteague-island-in-va?referer=fb-feed and read. Click the green button, "save" to vote - the person with the most votes by September 30 wins the contest. My challenge was to write about Chincoteague in no more than 160 words. I would so much appreciate a vote, if you read this and like it.

And sometime soon, I'll finish my story.

3 comments:

  1. I read that for a vote to count, the person must sign in (or sign up the first time). Glad you have such a nice memory of our trip to Chincoteague. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes - it should prompt you to sign in or sign up, either via facebook or by creating a trazzler account, when you click save.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I forgot to mention that I could scan a photo for you to add to your trazzler story.

    ReplyDelete

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