Basic Geography of our Island Trip

I've been posting pictures from Assateague and Chincoteague for several days so I thought I would explain the basic geography. Both are islands, with Assateague stretching out along the Atlantic Ocean and Chincoteague nestled between it and the mainland.There's another small island between Chincoteague and the mainland, and there's also a visitor's center for the NASA's Wallops Island Flight Facility, much of which is on the mainland, although the actual Wallops Island lies south of Chincoteague Island.

"MARS" Spaceport location map

I may be using the term "mainland" too loosely here. This part of land is actually a peninsula, called the Delmarva Peninsula (short for Delaware-Maryland-Virginia).  To further complicate things, the region is also called the Eastern Shore because it lies east of the Chesapeake Bay.

Anyway, you can drive out to Chincoteague and Assateague Islands thanks to causeways and bridges. Chincoteague is both an island and a town, and to complicate things, it is the name of a wildlife refuge on Assateague Island.

For our trip to the Eastern Shore, we entered at the southern tip of the peninsula via the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. It's 20 miles long and quite an engineering feat. We drove up US 13 (for about an hour not including a stop for dinner at Wachapreague) and turned east at Wattsville to reach the islands. On our homeward journey we took a northward route, stopping at Ocean City and then driving to the upper Chesapeake Bay Bridge and from there westward toward home.