End of Fall Teaching -- From Fairfax to Chincoteague

Photos to come...

After a month in Loudoun County, I actually was able to teach in other parts of Virginia (not that I didn't enjoy Loudoun...)!

First up on my schedule after Loudoun was Accomack County, the more northern of the two counties on the Eastern Shore of Virginia (the little dingy of land dangling off the eastern half of Maryland and often left off generalized maps of Virginia). I was quite excited for this since I had the fun schedule: though not a full week, I got to teach at Chincoteague Island (yes, the same island from the book, for those "Misty of Chincoteague" fans out there) and Tangier Island (the little Mackinac-esque -- i.e. no cars and mostly tourist-based economy -- island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay). After a lovely drive across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel and past NASA's Wallops Island center, I arrived to the small tourist town of Chincoteague accessible by a causeway and small bridge undergoing expansion and thus tons of construction. Chincoteague is a small town, since not too many people venture this way in mid-November, but I was glad to not have too many tourists clogging the small streets. I went that afternoon out to explore the southern end of Assateague Island National Seashore, a 37-mile-long barrier in both Maryland and Virginia. I hiked to the cool brick lighthouse and along the shore, excitedly calling family so that they could hear the ocean without needing a seashell. However, it was pretty darn cold that close to dusk and during a snow-wielding cold front on the beach, so my walks didn't last too long. Being on the Eastern Shore, an area known for its seafood (one of the main industries other than agriculture, which wasn't too much in season in November), I felt I had to find some for part of my dinner, which I did with some ridiculous oysters rockefeller (or something like that) before returning to my hotel for my usual evening (while on the road) full of trashy television.

The next day I was up and teaching before a bit of afternoon exploration and some more fun at the National Seashore. This time, I found some of the loose wild ponies for which the island is known (every summer they make a herd of the ponies "swim" from the barrier island to Chincoteague as a re-enactment of when they used to take the ponies to market to sell). The next day, I was supposed to teach at Tangier Island, and to get there, I'd have to rendezvous with the marine police for an early morning boat ride to the island. However, the boat ride was weather-permitting and it became clear the night before that the weather, with that pesky cold front, would be too rough for me to go the day I was scheduled. I was given a small teaching assignment (two classes and a district visit -- a piece of cake day) and, after staying an additional day, would try to get to Tangier Island again. I did the additional teaching which was carved from the scheduled teaching of two other coworkers teaching the mainland schools in the county. The school we taught at shocked me when I found this school, in nearly a ghost-town of a community due to the dying railroad industry, seasonality of farming, and threatened fishing industry, had a school dentist just like most schools have school nurses (probably because this community both didn't have a nearby dentist and that most people in this community probably couldn't afford one). They were good kids, and after, I met with my coworkers also staying at my new hotel in Onancock (the town I was in a year previously with the ship and from where I'd catch the boat to Tangier Island the next day) and went to dinner.

The next morning I was again up early and down at the marina to meet the boat. The officer picked me up before we went to pick up the county DARE officer and a group of hospice workers who all go to the island weekly. Apparently, they were all surprised that we were making the trip due to the conditions of the bay, and the ride met the reputation. I was excited for a choppy ride, just as I'd always been excited when taking the ferry to Mackinac, and loved that the boat was bouncing all over as it hit each wave. After the delay of picking up my fellow passengers and the hour boat trip, we arrived to the small island. During the summer, it sees a fair amount of tourists (no where near as many as Mackinac since it's more like a quaint B&B destination in the bay and has plenty of golf carts for transport on the island), but most of its residents are watermen who rely on the reduced and threatened fishing in the bay and are thus hurting even more than most people with the economy. I wheeled my box of artifacts the quarter mile to the k-12 school where, due to time constraints, I had to combine the 3rd and 4th-grade programs (there were still only 12 students total, and that was with a student from each grade absent). After, I had lunch with the kids (cafeteria-style chicken and dumplings and canned beets) who were thrilled that I ate at their table and took repeated votes of who was the coolest historical figure we'd discussed and debated historical questions (I loved it!). Then, the DARE officer and I went back to catch the boat back to the mainland. The ride back was not quite as choppy, but with my hurried lunch, I felt the ups and downs a bit more and was grateful for the minivan drive back home.

The week after Thanksgiving, I was scheduled up in Fairfax County near Alexandria, where both Megan and I stayed. We had fun wandering through Old Town Alexandria (my first time there), having a fantastic dinner in an Irish pub, and finding all sorts of tacky inauguration paraphernalia. We taught together the next day and then set out for Arlington to the Drug Enforcement Agency's museum. The DEA museum was both free and small and gave us the history of both drug use and drug policy enforcement in the country, including such fabulous artifacts as a recreated 1990s meth lab, copious opium den photos, grenades and tommy guns from early 20th-century agents, and a pair of alligator-skin platform shoes from undercover agents -- fabulous! We explored the area a bit more before heading back to the hotel to discuss a possible hiking trip to England in May when we'll both have a month off. I taught at a different school than Megan the next day since she was heading home, but I met my friend Callie (who had just moved to Alexandria a few months previously) for dinner and Christmas Tree shopping. I was a bit sick the next day and ended up teaching just part of my schedule and returned home for some rest before making an appearance at the staff holiday party (covered in a different entry).

The next week I taught with Dorothy in Pittsylvania County (staying in Danville, just on the border of North Carolina) for a few days. It was a typical trip, but I did have fabulous classes and even met a friend's niece in one of my classes. We had some yummy barbecue one day and laid pretty low for the few days we were out there since the weather was pretty nasty every day we were there. On the way back to Williamsburg, we absent-mindedly missed our turn and were stuck on nearly flooded back roads the entire way back. I only had one other local teaching assignment, but spent every other day I was in the office preparing for staff training and getting things ready before my month off beginning at the end of the following week. It was busy, but everything got done and I was very much ready for some time off.