Greetings!
I spent the evening at the 2016 Pony Penning Carnival and brought home the most ridiculous souvenir! I have to admit, I had a full day and part of me just wanted to shower off the day’s grime and spend the evening lost in a book. Being bound and determined to check out all Pony Penning Week events, however, I would be remiss if I missed the carnival festivities. So, after a nice dinner in town we headed to the carnival ground. The place had transformed from the previous day’s auction atmosphere! It was alive with games, spinning rides, fried food, live music, and general fun.
Rays of setting sunlight filtered through the trees and gave the area a golden glow. My brother, boyfriend, and I bought game tickets and then together walked the small fair ground, evaluating our options to make the best use of our $20 worth of fun. The atmosphere of relaxed, happy, small-town people was infectious. I couldn’t help singing along to the familiar tunes coming from the stage as we walked past food vendors, booths where we could stock up on all the cowboy/girl accoutrements we had obviously forgotten, and past the rides that made me ill just watching the people spin.
I elected to chance my first ticket on The Birthday Wheel, as my birthday is only days away. I put a ticket down on July. The lady spun the wheel… and then took pity on me. She let me choose one of the small prizes. I chose a palomino colored horse because that was Misty’s coloring. Although I hadn’t won the pony raffle, I was bringing a pony home from Chincoteague!
We played the rest of the tickets at other games that took less than skill or chance. We even tried the choose-a-duck game where one of the young helpers (I mean a very young girl) in explaining to us how to play, picked up a duck to show us a number on the bottom and then said, “Oh! It’s a 1, I guess you get a prize!” By the end of the night, between us we were taking home three small ponies (palomino, orange, and green), one grey medium pony, and one large pink and gold unicorn! It was definitely worth $20 worth of fun.
Our winnings for the evening! The bright pink unicorn is my favorite.Till next time,
Elizabeth
Plan Your Trip
- The Carnival starts each evening of pony penning week at 7:30pm.
- Game/ride tickets are $1.50 each
Nagypapa says
It is the best time of the year to write and send us these very entertaining summer stories about the Chincoteague Pony Penning. I am looking through the window and see also a beautiful blue sky like on your Carnival picture. EXCEPT that my outside thermometer shows only 16 F.
A Suitcase Full of Books says
I was worried that these posts are coming out too late and at the wrong time of year! I’m glad you like the timing! We have also had clear sky in Alaska for a week, but the thermometer said 1 F this morning! I’m ready for summer weather now!