Trish & Anne RV Adventures

When I last left you it was Wednesday May 15th and we were getting off the Cape May/Lewes Ferry. We were heading to Cape Henlopen State Park – once we picked up our car, we made it to the campground, got set-up, had hot-dogs on the grill and played some Rummikub.

On Thursday morning, I was having my tea and sitting outside the RV. This robin was keeping me company. After stopping at the Nature Center to pick up some information about birding, we went to The Point – on the list as the best birding in the park. It wasn’t so good on a cloudy/foggy morning. We had a nice conversation with the woman who was posted to keep people out of the Piping Plover breeding spot. We saw some plovers, as well as fiddler crabs on the bay side.

Then we walked over the dunes to the ocean side. The new path was well marked, but there were remnants of the old path – probably from before the piping plovers were protected. With all the fog and clouds, it was difficult to tell where the ocean began and the sky started. We did see several groups of fishermen who had driven onto the beach in their trucks. Back at the parking lot, I caught this Mockingbird and an Osprey flying overhead.

We went to the Pig and Publican for lunch – where we had some wonderful mushroom soup and fish dip. Next stop was The Station to pick up some sweets – they had lots to choose from. We got a Lemon Cookie for dessert, and a Blueberry Cheesecake Sweet Roll for breakfast. Both of these places were recommended by the woman we met on the beach – if you are ever in Lewes, Delaware, we think you should stop in.

Later in the afternoon, after digesting lunch and when the rain let-up, we went to Hopkins Farm. This is our friend Jodie’s favorite Delaware ice cream spot. I would have had my picture taken on the cow, but there was a puddle. If you look closely you can see a pigeon in the silo.

Then we drove in to Rehoboth Beach, another nice beach community – it was a cloudy day, so it wasn’t super busy. We did walk a block of the main drag, and found an arcade. I won a ton of tickets at a coin drop machine (not sure how), and then I walloped Trish at a pinball machine. We were the only customers. We had decided to walk the south end of the Gordon Pond Trail. It’s a three mile walking/bicycling path that is part of the state park, but this end is in Rehoboth Beach. This was one of the places where we saw these bicycle repair tools – had never seen anything like this before.

The walk was along a marsh, we saw several flocks of shorebirds, and just enjoyed the scenery.

We were moving campsites on Friday, so we packed up and parked the RV near the Hawk Watch platform in the state park. I caught this Bluebird on a roof. The hawk watch was built over one of the bunkers from WWII, but we didn’t see any birds from there – we walked over the dune and got a foggy view of the lighthouse.

Then we drove to Herring Point. There we more bunkers, dolphin, gulls, fog

We then walked the northern part of the Gordon Pond Trail. Saw this Snowy Egret, a Boat-tailed Grackle, a couple of Great Egrets coming in for a landing and a tree swallow.

Then we headed about 10 miles south to the Delaware Seashore State Park. The campground has sites on either side of the Indian River – we were on the south side. On a walk along the rive we saw Osprey, Green Heron, Cormorant, and some Great Blue Heron. The bridge reminded us of the Zakim Bridge in Boston.

There were tornado warnings somewhere nearby – hard to tell exactly where when you don’t know the area. But the sky looked ominous, so we battened down the hatches – brought in the slide and put up the levelers – and headed to the shower house. We appeared to be the only ones who were concerned, as our only company were these two barn swallows. By 8 PM, the warnings were called off, so it was back to the RV to finish making dinner.

We started Saturday by going to the Indian River Life Saving Station. It was built in 1876 as part of the US Life Saving Service. It was staffed by 7 or 8 surfmen and a keeper, who was in charge of the station. Before satellite, GPS and electronic charts, ships stayed close to the shore to navigate by the lighthouses and other visual signs. They frequently would run aground on shoals, or be grounded during storms. The goal of the LSS was to rescue both seamen and cargo. The USLSS merged with the Cutter Service to form the Coast Guard in 1915. This station continued in use until 1962, when it was severely damaged in a storm. The building has been restored and many of the artifacts were returned by descendants of the surfmen.

Those are pictures of what the restoration process looked like, and in honor of my sister Suzanne, I had to take a picture of the library.

This is the kitchen – they always had plates set, so that the surfmen knew their colleagues were waiting for them. The motto of the service was, “You have to go out, you don’t have to come back.”

To us, this was the most interesting part of the exhibit. It shows the apparatus that was used if the boat had run aground within 500 feet of the shore. There was an elaborate process of using the cannon to shoot a thin rope across the boat – with that, they could then send instructions (in both English and French) across about how to set-up on the boat end. Then they could create a clothesline type apparatus with heavier ropes so they could ferry the stranded seaman ashore in a breeches buoy.

On the left is the surfmen’s bunk room, and on the right is the keepers room/office. Each surfman had one small closet for their belongings. The surfmen had to stand watch, which consisted of walking the beach looking for stranded ships – they would walk until they met the surfman from the next station, and they would exchange these checks to prove that they had completed their stretch of beach. At this station, the person going south quickly ran into the river – so at that point there was a Detex box – at the time they were new technology for ensuring guards were doing their rounds. They were still in use when Trish was a guard at Polaroid in the early 1970’s.

After finding some crackers and cookies at the local marina, we did the one mile walk on the Burton Isle trail. Looking across the river we could spot our RV – visible in the right hand photo – that grey over the cab that you can see that seems to be the 2nd from the right RV.

It was a beautiful, warm day, and lot’s of folks were out enjoying it! We didn’t see many birds, but at least we had some shade and a breeze so it wasn’t too bad.

We did see these Tree Swallows doing a courting routine.

After some rest in the air conditioning in the RV, we drove about 8 miles south to Bethany Beach. Another seaside town, with a boardwalk, shops and a beach – and Minions. We did find a place to have our dessert first – yes, that means ice cream.

We ate at the Big Chill – a beach club back at the state park, and had some time to see some dolphins before it was back to the RV for our weekly family Zoom call.

That finished just in time to catch the sunset – it was a much nicer then the evening before – and then some more Rummikub.

The next day we went to the Delaware Botanical Gardens, as they were on the way to our next camping spot. As we were walking in, there was this mural with a swing – it wasn’t a bench, but still, I fake sat and Trish got my picture. And there were actually Eastern Bluebirds using the bird boxes.

The first area you see when you enter the gardens is this meadow. It was designed by Piet Oudolf – the Dutch garden designed who also designed the High Line in NYC.

They also have the Woodland Trail — which leads down to the Pepper Creek. We loved the way they labeled the different parts of the garden.

They have also created many sculptures made out of natural materials — that’s a sea serpent –

Trish with the remnants of a house that was originally on the property, a heron, a fiddler crab, and a troll.

An octopus, with the suckers on the arms made from nut shells, a small and a spiders web.

That’s us and Medusa, a turtle, and our RV parked in the lot.

We then found, you guessed it – a place for ice cream. It was Parson’s Farm. They had a petting zoo, and a cow statute that didn’t have a puddle on it.

Our overnight stop was at the Abbott’s and Oak Lavender Farm. It was a nice, quiet location. Jeff and Patti were great hosts and we talked about our RV travels. Jeff had set a great fire, but by the time we had had our dinner, it was too late to start it. Then it was another night of Rummikub.

The next morning we dropped the RV at a Walmart and drove the car into Dover. We were surprised when we were about five miles from the capitol building and we were still seeing marshes and farmland.

The visitor’s center was in the Delaware Archive Building, and it was open to the public. We went in and they were having a special exhibit on illustrations of WWI that had been done for the Ladies Home Journal.

They Shall Not Pass, Under The White Flag, When Pope Benedict Greeted President Wilson and The Dog That Saved A Regiment are a sampling of what we saw. The reason they are here is that the Delaware National Guard put together the collection because two of the illustrators were from Delaware – Frank Earle Schoonover and Gayle Porter Hoskins.

The Delaware State Legislature was probably the plainest State House we have ever seen. No dome, inside or out, the Governor only has a ceremonial office and most of the meeting rooms are in a different office building. The House and Senate Chambers were almost identical, with only the color of the rug (blue in senate, red in house), the number of desks and the artwork being different. The house Chamber did have this beautiful seal in the ceiling and that is the Delaware Chair of Honor. “It is symbolic of the fact that, while those listed in the accompanying Delaware Roll of Honor (those lost, MIA or POWs) may no longer be with us, they will always have an important place in Delaware’s state capital – and in our hearts.”

The State Legislature is on an historic square – one street has a series of memorials. This is the one to Law Enforcement. There are lots of old homes that are all now law offices. I didn’t walk over to see what that feather was about. The last building in this set is the Old State House. We did each lunch at Cobblestone’s – their homemade hummus was almost as good as Trish’s and it was served with warm pita bread.

Trish missed a kitty fix when she didn’t join me in the store when I was in search of a magnet. The Biggs Museum of American Art was along our path back to our car. They were closed but there were some cool sculptures outside. If you look closely at the one with the tree, you can see that there is a flock birds that appear to be coming out of the building to land in the tree.

After that it was back to get the RV and then drop the car back in Rehoboth Beach so we could move on to Maryland and Virginia. More on that next time.

Until then, safe travels.