Nov 2007

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 101
Weather - Sunny & Mild (60's)
Camped at: Maddox Family Campground in Chincoteague

Confessions:

I think the folks who suggested this section were kidding of course, but I'm having some fun with it so will continue for today at least. I had never heard of the Ponies at Chincoteague (or of Chincoteague, Mom has been having fun correcting my pronounciation since this is one place she knew of but I didn't).

Narrative:

We woke up Thanksgiving morning to a splended day. It was hard not picking up the phone and just calling folks, but we tried to remember the time difference and not wake everybody in the west coast up at 5 AM! Mom felt so good this morning, she took a short walk.

On the Jetty along the narrow inlet between the Atlantic Ocean and Rehoboth/Indian Bay's, a lot of men come out to catch the fish concentrated by the channel. Thanksgiving was no exception, they were out in force. Mom saw a short shark (slightly over a foot long) that one of the fishermen caught.

We both saw lots of birds. I tried to take pictures, but for the most part they outran (or out flew) me. I was surprised to see yellow stripes on the red-winged blackbirds. According to the research I did on the internet, this is the way they are supposed to look, I guess I just never noticed it before.

I also took a long walk around the campground and even sat on the swings for a bit (swinging of course). Fortunately no one was around with a camera...

Somehow, we reluctantly managed to leave this beautiful area and thought we'd make really good time. Afterall, today was Thanksgiving, so of course we didn't expect any places would be open. We drove south and soon reached the southern border of Delaware. Just before we crossed into Maryland, we noticed a sign for Fenwicks Island Lighthouse - we'd been watching for it since it was marked on our atlas. It was only about a block from the main road, closed today of course, but we were able to take a couple of pictures.

I stopped at a nice beach in Ocean City, Maryland - a little built up for my taste, but hey, any beach is better than none. With the sun shining and Atlantic waves breaking, I even took off my shoes and got my feet wet a bit. I'm pretty sure this is a ring-billed gull, a very common species.

As we approached Pokomoke City farther south, we saw signs for a state park. Mom wanted to see if she could get sand from the Pokomoke River, so even though it was Thanksgiving, we decided to turn off and give it a try. We didn't find any park staff (or anybody else for that matter), but the park appeared to be open at least for day use so we stopped by a boat ramp to give it a look. There wasn't any sand, but some very informative signs. This turned out to be one of the northernmost Bald Cypress Swamps in the US. The water was naturally quite black due to tannens from the trees. I think to really enjoy the bald cypress, you probably had to canoe through the swamp - but as we didn't have an canoes with us we just enjoyed it for a bit. The signs also said there would be many more as we continued south.

We passed Pokomoke City and were heading to Virginia when Mom started saying something about some Island and ponies, which I couldn't quite understand. Finally, it registered that she was talking about a place that was on her 'must see' list before we'd left home and it was not very far from us. Although I'd never heard of it, it sounded interesting and I had previously agreed that we'd visit it - I'd just forgotten and had no idea where it was. Well now, it was right on our route (or just about). So after we'd figured out what we were talking about, Mom was able to figure out the connections and we headed across the Chincoteague Bridge. (This shot is actually from the Island, looking back at the bridge).

Immediately across from the bridge is a small city park and a couple of blocks of gift shops, restaraunts, and other sundry buildings. Chincoteague has a small town and plenty of tourist related businesses (including RV parks, lots of minature golf courses - which I forgot to mention were also abundant in Ocean City). One gift shop was actually open - on Thanksgiving no less! Mom wanted to see if she could find a book about a pony called "Misty", so we found a place to park and went inside. She found the book (on sale), and bought two or three copies. But the interesting thing was the side of the building - it had been painted by local school kids in various nautical themes. (Mom's picture came out better then mine, so I'm pilfering it here.)

The gift shop also gave us directions to the horses. They are actually on a separate Island, Assateague, which is to the east (Atlantic side) of Chincoteague (got all your 'teague's straight?) There are two herds of ponies on Assateague, the one on the north end (Maryland herd) is managed by the National Park Service, who runs the island. The herd on the south end (Virginia herd) is managed by the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Department who rounds them up every year in late July, herds them across the narrow channel between the islands, and culls some of the yearlings from the herd to sell to support their organization and keep the herd size from growing larger than the island can support. After they've finished their work, they herd the remaining ponies back to Assateague Island. That's the big tourist attraction, the July roundup, but it's been going on since 1925.

So of course we decided we'd have to try to visit Assateague Island if we wanted to see the ponies. However, on the way, we bumped into another stroke of Thanksgiving Luck. Knowing the holiday was fast approaching and I had no formal plans for what to do (I'd thought we'd get to the Thousand Trails campground in Virginia before the holiday and have time to find a restaraunt), I had bought some nice frozen turkey dinners just in case (backup plan). However, as we drove across Chincoteague, we passed a restaraunt that was open. Just on the chance they had openings, we stopped in - and yes, they had room, No Wait! So we stopped for a nice turkey dinner with all the trimmings and still had our frozen turkey dinners we ate later for 'leftovers'. Nice.

Then on we drove to Assateague (a short drive). Most of this island is preserved from development now, so is a very pleasant place (especially with the sun out and all). The first pullout was a parking lot for the Assateague Lighthouse. It was a 1/4 mile walk to the lighthouse, but looked paved and level so I encouraged Mom to give it a try. It wasn't bad most of the way, but near the end there was an uphill grade to the top of a low sand dune and also the path turned to sand at the top of that (not good for walkers). Of course, latter I found out there was another way in for disabled access. In the meantime, we enjoyed the sun and meeting other tourists out for the day. This lighthouse looks like it needs a paint job, I wonder if that's because it's still owned by the Coast Guard (rather than a 'Friends of the xyz lighthouse' group as most of them seem to be nowdays)?

After the lighthouse, we passed the road to the Visitors Center. Being Thanksgiving, I figured it was closed, but turned off anyway in case they had any maps or information that might be useful. Not only was it NOT closed, I found out that if we hurried, there was a 7 mile service road opened on the north end of the island for National Birding Week (or some such thing). It would only be open for about another hour, but the ranger said if we hurried, we could probably make it - and it would be the best place to be able to see ponies from the car. (We did see ponies from the car later on the south end of the island as well, but this way we got to see both herds, as well as more birds).

Anyway, we hurried off and yes - were just about the end of the line. The service road was quite narrow and the rules were 'no stopping' (and therefore also no getting out). How are you supposed to enjoy the wildlife without stopping? Don't birders take pictures also? I don't know, we tried to not stop (too much anyway). We also did not get out of the rig (but rolled our windows down for pictures).

First, we saw a few birds - then later more birds. Mom and I had a little confusion about camera's so we missed getting a picture of the crane. (We later saw more, but never did get a picture of one). We saw more snow geese and ducks and lots of lovely scenery. Then we started seeing horse droppings, but they seemed kind of small. Then I did break the rules a bit and stopped. This time, both Mom & I managed to get our camera's going and got some shots - then more later. (These are all of the north, or Maryland, herd)

Behind us a ranger started to follow the cars to make sure everybody got out of the service road area, he drove slowly and used his flashing light on the top to spur on laggards - it seemed like he was herding us! I was several cars ahead of the ranger at first, but as the line of us slowly snaked our way out, somehow I fell back a bit and ended up only one car up from the flashing light (ugh), Mom was sure we were going to be arrested. But he was just making sure we (and everyone else) got out OK.

So we started heading out of the park when it occured to me that the day was so lovely and we were having such a good time in the park, I'd rather just stay there a little longer and not worry about making it the rest of the way to our destination today as planned. So instead I turned to the south end of the park. Along the road, we saw more ducks (American Black Ducks in this case), egret's and heron:

And right along the road, where there was plenty of room to pull over, we also saw the south herd of ponies!

I probably would have stayed longer, but it was getting too dark to take pictures so decided to just check out the beach at Toms Cove briefly and head out. While there, Mom took this shot of a thoughtless fellow hogging her parking spot (at least that's what she calls this photo):

I couldn't cap off such a wonderful day just parking anywhere, so pulled into a nice RV Campground just across the bridge back on Chincoteague Island and we stayed for the night. This may not have been your typical "Thanksgiving" holiday, but it will be a hard one to top in my book.

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 76 (Not in a circle for a change!)
Weather - Spectacular (Sunny, Warm, 70 F)
Camped at Rehoboth State Park along the Delaware Seashore

Narrative:

It's remarkable what a beautiful day or two can do for morale! The sky was blue, sunshine abounds, warm & pleasant, just spectacular. We probably should have just spent the day in a park just sitting in the grass and enjoying the sun, but are both feeling the need to move on so decided to finish visiting the museums in Dover and head to Virginia. We did at least see a rose in bloom, might seem odd to post a picture of a rose on a travel blog - but to see one this nice near the end of November is kind of cheery:

First, we went to the Visitor's Center in downtown Dover. This is in the same building as the Biggs Museum of American Art. In fact there are several museums in downtown Dover, some were closed because it was the day before Thanksgiving. Still, we managed to find enough open to kill most of the day. If you're interested, you can check them out online at Dover Museums.

The Biggs Museum had a special exhibit on Christmas Cards for the holiday season. This is widely recognized as the first commercially printed Christmas Card. It was printed in 1843 by Sir Henry Cole, designed by John Horsley. When it was first published, it was criticized for showing a family drinking. I guess some things never change, we're lucky it didn't scare people away from printing more Christmas Cards (for me at least, I still like them).

The Biggs Museum also has some pretty good exhibits of early American furniture and silver. I especially liked these two items, both made in Philadelphia in the early 1800's. The first is a folding card table with brass inlay (very nice), the second a Pianoforte by Loud & Bro's. I am still amazed at the high quality products made by American shops only 200 years after the first colonists landed, and still only with hand tools!

The museum also had this lovely iron staircase, which you could use even though it was part of their exhibits.

We did really miss an opportunity here however. As it was the day before Thanksgiving, most people were preparing for the holiday and we pretty much had the museum to ourselves. A very nice staff lady offered to show us around the art exhibits and we declined. Neither Mom nor I are great art connoisseurs and were both feeling a little pressed to finish up in Delaware and head south again, but we probably could have learned some interesting things about art and learned to appreciate it a little more. If I should be so lucky as to get another offer to tour a museum with an expert, I'll try to be a little more receptive.

However we didn't take advantage of her offer and moved on to the Johnson Victrola Museum. This was a few blocks from the visitors center, but they had given us a map and directions so it wasn't hard to find. This had been our initial target for today since we'd seen it in one of the tourist brochures and thought it looked interesting.

Dottie met us at the door and was our guide for the first floor of the Museum. She explained the history of the Victrola company and demonstrated some of the technology. Thomas Edison invented the 'talking machine' in 1878. He envisioned it as a business tool and left the development and manufacture primarily to other people so his group could focus on the light bulb. When he created the first phonograph, it was all acoustic and mechanical - there were no electrical components at all, no motor, no microphone, no loudspeakers. His earliest model used a tinfoil coated cylinder to record a variable wave (based on acoustic sound waves). The cylinder was turned by a hand crank, so it was not possible to play back the 'record' at exactly the same speed it was recorded.

Emile Berliner was an inventor who started tinkering with Edison's 'talking machine'. He developed the first flat record and formed the Berliner Gramophone Company in Philadelphia in 1895. Eldridge R. Johnson had grown up near Dover and became a machinist after his parents were told he wasn't smart enough to go to college. By 1894 he was an experienced mechanic and owned his own company. The Berliner Gramophone Company came to him for parts for their machines and he began to tinker with the problem of turning the disks at a constant rate. E.R. Johnson developed the spring wound motor and governor, which kept the record & playback speeds at a constant rate. This improved the quality of sound recording so much, that in 1985 E. R. Johnson was awarded a "Grammy" (get it? Gramophone => Grammy?) for transforming the gramophone "... from a scientific toy to a commercial article of great value".

Johnson also became a partner in the Berliner Gramophone Company and in 1901 reformed it as the Victrola Talking Machine Company, of which he was the president. Edison's company continued to manufacture phonograph's with the cylinder, but it was the flat disks invented by Berliner and the spring wound motor by Johnson that created a practical music player for common homes everywhere.

In order to translate a wavy groove on a record to sound waves, the needle pressed against a device called a 'reproducer'. At first, these were made out of mica, but later they used aluminum. Here are some examples of reproducer parts.

The reproducer created sound waves, but very small ones. The sound was magnified by a horn. This produced only one volumn output - so if you wanted a quieter sound, you could put a sock in the horn - the source of our phrase 'Put a sock in it'. Also before you played the record, of course you needed to wind up the spring that made the record turn, the source of the phrase 'All wound up'.

It wasn't just playing records that had to be done with acoustics and mechanical methods, recordings were also all mechanical. The Victrola company did not start using microphones to make records until the 1920's. Since sound waves alone were used to drive the needle to make the recording, musicians had to gather closely by a big horn used to capture the sound. This is a picture from a 1910 recording session by the Victor Salon Orchestra.

There were advances of course. Victor started hiding the horn inside the case. This not only kept dust off, it also allowed the listener to close the doors if they wanted the music a little quieter.

Later as radio's became more popular, Victor also produced models with the radio inside the same box as the Gramophone. This model shows the vacuum tubes on the surface, since they needed to be frequently replaced.

The other tour guide at the museum, Wes, was especially proud of this model, similar to the one in the White House Music Room in 1910, when William Taft was President.

Upstairs there was a nice display of portable gramophones. These wouldn't have produced much volume of course but were quite interesting.

Finally, the most popular display at the Museum is of Nipper. Nipper was the dog used in the painting Victor used for it's logo for many years and called it "His Masters Voice". It has proven to be one of the most successful marketing logo's ever.

In 1926, the RCA company bought Victor and E. R. Johnson retired. His son wrote that while he did make technical contributions to the gramophone, his major contribution was running a successful business that manufactured and sold a quality product to people at an affordable price. For a man who was considered not smart enough for college, he retired a very weathly and successful man.

Just across the parking lot from the Johnson Victrola Museum is the Museum of Small Town Life. This has exhibits similar to other museums we've seen, but since we were right there we went ahead and checked it out. The building looks like a church, but has never been one - it was built as an extra building for a church for meetings or whatever they needed, but not for the services.

Inside, they have set up exhibits to feature the small shops and businesses that were essential to most small towns around 1900. Since many of these are similar to other's we've already posted, I'll just lay out the thumbnails below and you can click and enlarge those you wish.

One interesting thing to note is that the drugstore window had two round glass bottles of green and red colored water. These were visual symbols for a drugstore, similar to the barbershop pole. In 1900, there were still quite a few people who couldn't read, so visual symbols helped people recognize what shops were where when they came to town.

There was also a print shop in many small towns. Again, this one was similar to others we've seen, but the printing press in this one was much more effecient (e.g. faster) than the one in Mystic Seaport, so thought I'd put this up here also. Kae is demonstrating how it worked for us (they still use this to print fliers for the museum complex).

Here is an example of how they had to print pictures at the turn of the century. This is an etching, it was made in reverse (all letters, numbers, etc. always were laid out in reverse so they'd print correctly). Etchings and carvings were expensive, so printers reused them whenever possible.

Just visiting these museums took us into the middle afternoon, so after another unplanned route change, we headed back to the coast to head south into Virginia. We did stop by an interesting looking carriage museum in Georgetown but the volunteers were all leaving early for the holiday, so all we could do was walk around and look in the windows. We didn't stay there long at least.

I thought (foolishly) that I could make it from Dover, Delaware to Wilmington, Virginia in a couple of hours. Originally, I'd been planning to take the bridge across to Washington D.C., then head south on the freeways. However, the coastal route looked like it would be more scenic and with Wednesday afternoon being the start of the Thanksgiving traffic, I thought we might as well skip the freeways.

We did make it to the coast along the Delaware Seashore State Park - very lovely if you ever get a chance to visit it. On the east side is the Atlantic Ocean, and miles and miles of sandy beaches. On the west side is Rehoboth Bay, also with plenty of sandy beaches. However, the contrast between the beaches on the two sides of the narrow sand bar is quite remarkable - not surprising, but interesting.

We crossed a bridge at the center of the bay and found a state park campground just as it was getting dusk. It cost just as much as a private campground, but also had water and electric and water views, so would be hard to beat. For the night before Thanksgiving, there were quite a few RV's and Trailers in the campground. There were also a lot of fishermen using the jetty and in boats in the channel. Did we like it? 'Nuff said:

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 78 (I'm not sure how, we only went about 20 miles?)
Weather - Sunny & Warmer (65?)
Camped at - Dover Walmart

Confessions:

Seems that I might apologize a little too often, so somebody suggested I just use a form letter to get all this out of the way? They were just kidding, I'm sure, but I thought I'd confess why the blog got behind again. I spent one night reading one of the books we'd bought during the trip. I did have time to update the blog, just read the book instead. The rest of the books will have to wait until some cold, rainy night by the fireplace (which I don't have) back home.

The next night, instead of writing the blog, I watched Dancing with the Stars video's on the internet. We don't have a TV in the RV but do have internet access. So in addition to my travel addiction - now you know, I'm also a DWTS addict. What else can you say about someone without access to a TV who still can tell you how the current season is going, who's fainted, who's been kicked off, who made it to the semi-finals, etc...

Narrative:

We visited the John Dickenson Plantation Tuesday and really loved it. The tour starts at the visitors center, where we met Martha and Elenore. When I asked them about one of the trees we'd seen, they gave me a whole brochure on all the trees on the plantation and their 1700's uses. It's very interesting, someday I'll try to get some of that info up here...

John Dickinson is called "the Penman of the Revolution". He was a member of the continental congress from Delaware, but did not sign the Declaration of Independance as he advocated a more moderate approach. This caused him to fall out of favor with other leading patriots of the time, but he did support the cause once war broke out and was quite influential during the development of the Constitution.

The plantation, known as Poplar Hall was started by his father, Samuel Dickinson. It was a self-sufficient community, with the Mansion located only about 350 yards from the St Johns river. The river was a major factor, since boats could transport farm products from the plantation to markets in Philadelphia and elsewhere as well as bring in trade goods. The mansion is large enough by todays standards, but for it's day was indeed a mansion - John Dickinson was one of the wealthiest men in the colonies. The near side was plastered with a sort of concrete mix to protect the brick work from the salt air.

Once we'd watched a video and checked out the information displays in the visitors center, Martha and Elenore sent us up to the Mansion to meet Pete.

Pete was a wealth of information about the house, John Dickinson and his parents, and life in the mid 1700's colony of Delaware. First though he took us through the main portion of the house. This was still built in the Georgian style, with a central hall and rooms on either side. The Georgian style of architecture (named after four kings of England named George) values symmetry and was widely used in the English Colonies from about 1720 until after the Revolutionary War. The parlor is the first room to the right of the main hall.

In two similar sitting rooms on the left (one for Gentlemen, the other for Ladies) are portraits of John Dickinson's parents, Samuel and Mary. The interesting thing about these is the hands. Hands were difficult to paint, and portraits were very expensive during that era, so most artists did not include hands, or perhaps only included one. Both paintings show two hands, which is another sign of just how wealthy the Dickinsons were. Pete described John as the 'Bill Gates' of his time.

The master bedroom and two childrens bedrooms were upstairs. The beds used ropes to hold the mattress off the floor. You would tighten the ropes periodically to keep the bed from sagging, as in "Sleep Tight". John Dickinson owned 37 slaves who worked in various positions on the plantation. Since he was a Quaker, this was a cause of a fair amount of internal conflict with him and by the late 1700's he had set all of them free.

The mansion has been set up to reflect part of the era where slaves still were used, one of them is depicted as making the bed here. Also notice the blue satchel on the bed. It is filled with pine shavings, which attract bed bugs. They could leave this on the bed for a time and hopefully any bedbugs would migrate into the pine shavings, which they liked. Then a very fast boy would run it outside as quickly as possible.

There were also bedrooms on the third floor originally, but after the house burned and was rebuilt by John, the family didn't need as many bedrooms so the attic was mostly used for storage (or not used). Back downstairs, they had a kitchen on the first floor and also a kitchen in the basement. The kitchen on the main floor looks like it was mostly used just for final preparation and serving.

One of the additions John Dickinson added in 1771 was the dining room, which I failed to take a picture of for some reason. It seems odd, because I take so many pictures, but when I go to write the blog there always seems to be one that I didn't take, but wish I had. Fire the photographer!

The main kitchen was in the basement. Several of these rooms had 'ladders' for drying herbs as well as food preparation tables and cupboards for storing cooking utinsels. This table was set up with typical food from the mid 1700's for this household. If a man was to eat two dozen eggs , and some did, we would be shocked until we realize the size of the eggs involved- the eggs were much smaller then today's. The chickens were much smaller than today, as well as most other livestock. Scientific livestock breeding livestock to increase size or production was not practiced in the 1700's.

There is also a display in the basement of tools used during this era. By todays standards, the tools seem rather primative, but a skilled carpenter could build just about anything needed for the plantation using these tools. In fact, all of the fine, wood furniture in the Mansion was built in the colonies using tools similar to these.

Our guide, Pete, runs a business where he makes early American replica's like this drinking mug. People in Europe and the colonies preferred warm beer or ale. They could stick the toe of this cup in the fire and warm it up - without making it too hot. If you want a cup like this (or other early American replica's), you can contact him at:

http://www.goosebay-workshops.com/

Also in the basement was a room devoted to making cloth. The plantation grew flax, which was used to make linen. Pete explained the whole process, which you can also find on Wikipedia so I won't repeat it here. In his left hand is flax before processing. In his right, when it was ready for weaving.

After the flax was prepared for weaving, it went to the spinners. Ten spinners worked on the plantation, weaving both flax and wool. The large spinning wheel, called a walking wheel, was used for the wool since it worked faster. The smaller wheels were used for the flax.

Women spun, men worked the loom. Ten women spinning thread at a rate of one mile (of thread) per day, could just keep up with one man working a loom. It takes a lot of thread to make cloth.

This pretty much concluded the tour of the mansion. There were other buildings and operations performed at the plantation, but the only one open for tours is the mansion. Other buildings include

- A small stable (work animals stayed outdoors, only the family's riding horses got use of a stable),

- A Feed barn (only a few animals were kept over the winter, which became the next seasons breeding stock. Feed for these was kept in the Feed barn).

- A Granary (after harvest, some of the seed was kept to start the next year's crops. This was stored in the Granary. Most other seed would be sold, ground into flour or put to other uses)

- A Smoke House (used to prepare meat for storage as they had no refrigeration or canning during the 1700's)

Some of the other industries performed at the plantation included brick making, a distillery, tannery and orchards (apple cider among the products). It really was a pretty self-sufficient community.

All of this pretty much wiped out my 'learning' capacity for the day. I had never heard of John Dickinson, yet he was one of the influential founding fathers and major contributor to writing the Constitition! I didn't realize that some of the representatives at the Contential Congress refused to sign the Declaration of Independance. It seems this period of our history was more lively than I'd realized. But as we must move on, I bought a book about Mr. Dickinson to read later and we got back on the road.

After a minor side trip that didn't work out quite as planned (not all experiments work), we drove on to the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge. It was almost closed by the time we got there. The park rangers were kind enough to let us in and we did see some wildlife, but most of my pictures were blurry due to the low light conditions. First I did take one picture in the Ranger Station itself of something called a Punt Gun - odd piece of equipment. The picture doesn't do it justice, it is 7'7" long and weighs 90 pounds and was used for hunting ducks.

We also caught this raptor on our way into the NWR, but I didn't get a good enough look at him to make sure what he was:

All the rest of the bird pictures came out blurry, but I uploaded a couple of the best ones for some unknown reason. We did see a lot of snow geese, but even I couldn't bring myself to upload those shots - just too awful (not the geese, the photo's of course). We also saw a fox, not sure what kind and he was too quick for my camera.

And finally, I did get a couple of decent shots of the sunset:

We left the wildlife refuge and headed back to Dover so we could see a couple of Museums on Wednesday. After a couple of unplanned route changes, we finally located the local WM and bedded down for the night.

Logistics:

Miles Driven - 73 (In a circle, of course)
Weather - Heavy rain and wind during the night, Overcast, Cool, occasional wind
Camped at G & R RV campground (full services) about 10 miles east of Wal-mart we were at last night. (Read story at end...)

Narrative:

Oh yes, before we go to the beach I have to share this. Somebody back home asked us about how crowded Delaware is and whether there was any open space in it (we WA Staters don't always know much about the east coast). It is crowed by our standards, 7 times more densely populated than the national average (New Jersey, at 13 x nat'l avg is the most densely populated). However, most of the population is concentrated in the northern portion of the state. As we drove further south, we saw quite a few farms and portions of the coast are now protected wetlands. This was one of the prettier farm vista's we saw. So there you have it, Delaware farmland.

I suggested we go to the beach today, thinking we'd drive straight there on the highway and finish up the Delaware coast. Mom agreed, but wanted to head east to the coast first, then south via back roads. We agreed to try this and headed off. We weren't exactly sure where to go on the eastern coast of Delaware, but she saw a "Mispillion Light" indicated on the map and thought it might be a lighthouse. It used to be a lighthouse, but it's long gone.

What we found was a place called the Du Pont Nature Center. This is located where the Mispillion River empties into the Delaware Bay. It is in the center of a large amount of wetlands which supports a lot of shorebirds. The Nature Center opened May 23, 2007 - so again our timing was very good. In fact, the best view of the center is from a photograph they used on the invitations for their opening (they could put their camera across the canal and get a better shot than I could).

Of course Mom wanted to go inside, this side trip was her idea - and it wasn't raining this morning...

The manager of the Nature Center is Dawn Webb. She was quite proud of the many programs they put on, including educational talks, kayak trips and so forth. She thought our trip was a pretty cool idea (as do we), but I'm afraid I talked her ear off a bit, must be a by-product of locking myself up in the RV all day yesterday (other then the occasional hunting expedition for provisions at the host Wal-mart). At least she didn't toss me into the channel however.

I checked out some seagulls and a cormorant through the binoculars. She also told us about a bird called an Oystercatcher that frequents the area when the tide is out. Unfortunately, they didn't show up for us - from the picture boards, it looks like a really pretty bird.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Oystercatcher

Inside the Nature Center (where it was warm, out of the wind, and Mom's favorite spot) there were a lot of sign boards about the area, it's history, and various types of shore life. One of the local animal kingdom celebrities is the Horseshoe Crab. This isn't a crab at all but kind of looks like one, so was misnamed and it stuck. These are very strange looking creatures and Delaware Bay is one of the places they congregate. The Center had a small aquarium with a couple of small Horseshoe Crabs in it, this is probably more fun then my trying to describe these critters.

After checking out the Center and some of the exhibits, we needed to move on. The manager, Dawn, told us that just down the road at Slaughter Beach it was possible to pick up rocks with fossels in them (she even gave Mom one in case we couldn't find any). We thought that sounded interesting, so off we went. It was cold, but here is the intrepid fossel hunter on the prowl.

I did pick up some rocks that looked interesting, one looks like it has a fosselized shell in it. The seaweed was also really weird. This was just a small clump, but I couldn't figure out what that cream colored thing was - it didn't seem to be man made.

There is a lot of organic material (or something) in the surf that is darker then the water or sand, almost black in fact. There is enough that it makes the waves look black - which gave them a very unusual look. I learned later that this is probably peat that washes out of the wetlands if it breaks down. At any rate, I thought the black waves were pretty unusual looking.

Slaughter Beach was very cold however. Mom did get out and picked up a few small rocks but got cold and went back to the RV. So when I got back and we rechecked the map, we both agreed to go back to the main highway and get to the more southern beaches a little faster.

We saw a bunch of brown signs about museums and historic stuff so pulled off in Lewes. The town was shelled by the British during the war of 1812 for twenty-two hours. As many as 800 projectiles were fired into the town, damaging many buildings.

This is also where the Dutch first landed in 1631 to form a permanent European settlement, Zwaanendael (Valley of the Swans). The local town has erected a Zwaanendael Museum in honor of the first settlement. The museum was closed when we were there, so I don't know if it was any good or not, but the building was certainly interesting. (Thumbnails, click to enlarge)

Immediately next to the museum is the Lewes Visitors Center. This is located in the Fisher-Martin House, a farmhouse built in about 1730. the exterior has been carefully restored. Inside,
the main rooms are pretty full with stuff you normally find in a visitors center, but one side room is still pretty clear, making it easier to see the older characteristics of the building.

The lady at the visitors center gave us a map where she marked the location of the 1631 site. She also suggested we visit the Cape Henlopen State Park, which was nearby and which we had never heard of.

First we headed off to find Zwaanendael (the site, not the Museum). There isn't much to see there, the state has erected a monument, I'm guessing the flat area may have been part of the location as well. (Tourist opportunity here - develop the site a bit more, add signage on how to get there, put out some brochures, maybe build a replica fort or exhibits on how the Dutch settler's might have lived, I'm guessing it's a little different then the British at Plymouth Colony?)

There is an interpretive sign that explains a little more about what happened. In 1631, the Dutch West India Company sent out 28 men to build a permanent settlement on the site to be a center for farming, ranching, trading and whaling. Five more men joined the group from New Amsterdam (now New York). When they landed, they set a pole in the ground with a tin plate with the arms of Holland painted on it (see painting below). Some time later, a local indian chief took the tin plate to make tobacco pipes. When the Dutch found out, they made such a fuss about it that some other local indians went off and killed the chief who'd taken the tin. The murdered chief's friends were so upset about this that they killed the Dutch settler's in revenge and burned their buildings (one did manage to escape and made it back to New York). So the first 'permanent' settlement in Delaware didn't even last a year. It wasn't always easy being a colonist and Zwaanendael wasn't the only new settlement that didn't survive. However, Delare still recognizes it as the first European settlement in the Delaware.

After visiting Zwaanendael, we started towards the State Park. On the way was an old Lightship that the town of Lewes had saved as part of their maritime exhibits. This was built in 1939 as one of the last lightships that were built. Lightships could be positioned where fixed structures were impractical and they could also be relocated as needed. As time progressed, unmanned bouy's were probably much cheaper to operate and the lightships became obsolete. Too bad, I think it might have been kind of fun to serve on one, for a few days anyway. This one remained in service off Boston and Long Island until 1973 when it was retired and donated to the Lewes Historical Society.

From there, it wasn't too much farther to Cape Henlopen State Park.

Cape: a piece of land jutting into a body of water beyond the rest of the coastline, a headland, a promentory. A headland that dramatically affects currents is often called a Cape.

William Penn actually designated this area be set aside for public use as far back as 1682. It is where the Delaware Bay ends and the Atlantic Ocean begins and is an ever changing coastline. On Cape May on the New Jersey side, the point is eroding. On Cape Henlopen in Delaware, the point has been extending out further, over a mile in the past 170 years.

In addition to being a major seashore, Cape Henlopen hosted a U.S. Army base during World War II, Camp Miles. We had learned in NJ that German U-Boats frequently patrolled off the New Jersey coast and into Delaware Bay, so coastline fortificatons were constructed to try to spot them (as well as any other enemy warships) and defend the coast. These coastal fortifications became obsolete with the advent of long range missiles later however and Fort Miles has been turned over to the State Park.

Now the clever reader might be wondering how I got a picture of Fort Miles from above like this? (Unless of course they are from Delaware). Part of the forts defenses were Observation Towers. These were built to last 20 years, so many are now in various states of disrepair, however one is still maintained so people can climb it (which of course I did).

There isn't much else to do at Fort Miles yet, the state is still working on what they want to do with it, so we drove on to the Cape itself, which is really what we came to see. The sand dunes are fragile and we could only drive out a short way, but it was enough to see the point: Delaware Bay in foreground, Atlantic Ocean beyond point.

The red lighthouse is the "Delaware Breakwater East End Lighthouse". This one is on the Delaware Bay side of Cape Henlopen, it is 56' tall and 22' across at the base. The Coast Guard closed the lighthouse in 1996 and it is now owned and maintained by the non-profit group, "Delaware River and Bay Lighthouse Foundation". The white lighthouse is the "Harbor of Refuge Light" and is on the Atlantic Ocean side of the Cape (notice wilder wave action?). It was built in 1926 of cast iron after previous lighthouse structures were destroyed by storms. It is 76' tall and had a lighthouse keeper until 1973 when it was automated. It is now also owned by the same non-profit group. both lighthouses had fourth order Fresnel lenses.

It was starting to get late and cold, but Cape Henlopen was such a special place that I encouraged Mom to get out and give it a look. Every place we'd stopped in Delaware up to this point, she'd ask if the water was the Delaware Bay or Atlantic Ocean, as there wasn't much wave action. Now we know. She didn't stay out long, but was glad to see the sand dunes. I'm pretty sure I also saw an Osprey (kind of late in the season), but he dove down before I could get the camera set up - must have caught whatever he was diving for since he didn't come back up while we were there.

We still had a couple of things we wanted to see in Dover, so decided to head back up in that direction. Just as we were leaving Lewes, we saw more snow geese:

Hmm, its interesting how quickly I seem to get tired of shopping malls and big cities - but never seem to get tired of simple birds, seascapes and scenery? There's something to analyze here, but not today...

When we drove through downtown Milford, I just spotted this harrier on a sign at an intersection. It was getting fairly dim, so the shot is a little blurry, but had to share it. I only managed to get a couple shots off before he flew off (I stayed back and hid behind the corner of the RV, so I don't think I scared him off?)

Tonight we decided to give Walmart a break and go to the G & R campground a little west of Milford (10 miles from where we started out this morning). When we got there, the office was closed and had a sign on the door to pick a site & register in the morning. No problem, we've done that before, so we found a nice spot and got all plugged in and had a good night sleep. In the morning, I took some time (belatedly perhaps) to research & call campgrounds so we could decide where to head next. We knew we still wanted to check out a couple of things in Dover, but we also need to be moving on. So after doing that and some regular housekeeping, we didn't hit the road until about 11. The campground office was closed, no note on the door this time - just locked up.

What to do? I left a note on the door saying who we were and what site we'd stayed in, that I'd call later to make arrangements to pay (usually leave a credit card number). The G & R Campground operator finally got ahold of us (Rodney I believe?) and we made all the necessary payment arrangements, when he asked me about my Mom again (she had answered the phone). When he found out that we were on this big RV trip and she was 80 years old, he gave us the night at the campground for free! He said he it was a birthday present since he hadn't been able to attend the big party she told him about.

So if you're ever in need of an RV campground in the Dover/Milford area, this guy deserves your business. And if sometimes all the grumpy people in the news start to get you down, remember the kind lady in Hartford who led us across town when we were lost, or the G & R campground operator who helped us out with a night at a nice campground! Or all the other wonderful & helpful people we've met along the way... Maybe we should fire me and take one of them along instead!

No need for logistics today, we didn't go anywhere.

I didn't really drive all the way across the country to stay in a Wal-mart parking lot, but sometimes you gotto do what you gotto do. I got an email Friday night that needed some stuff put together and mailed out over the weekend. Before we left on the trip, I knew there were some affairs that would need attention during the trip that couldn't be delegated and brought along a lot of extra paperwork (ugh). This was one of those tasks, so I just bit the bullet and decided to sit tight and get it done.

Even though I had all the paperwork necessary - the rig is so small I thought it might be better to try renting a cabin at one of the few RV parks that are open in Delaware. So I called them all, then tried a couple in New Jersey, then gave up and decided to just make it work where we were. One place had cabins available, but at $90 a night. We may try the motel option again later, but try to get something on the first floor next time where we can park right outside the room. I think we can also get cabins cheaper at my membership campgrounds farther south - but we aren't there yet.

So rather the have to hunt down a motel or spring for an overpriced 'cabin', I elected to just stay put today. My biggest concern was not driving Mom crazy. We talked it over and she decided she was fine with the idea and would work on coloring the Christmas cards. So I blocked off some space for her to work on the couch then started moving paperwork files around until I could find what I needed. This isn't the type of work environment I'd choose, but it's amazing what you can get done in a small place when you need to.

A few quick reflections on the blog (I like to do things like this when I have a down day):

- We seem to have picked up a few new readers of late. If so, welcome aboard! I hope you're enjoying our little trip as you come along with us. There are still a few dates in September I haven't completely updated yet with photo's, but I do plan to get this caught up. I also still have video's to add to earlier dates (once I start using video editing software). I'll post a note or something so people know when these are done. The (Photo's Added) or (Video Added) in the title just mean that I posted a short writeup without photos and then added to it later. If neither of those are in the title, everything got posted when I got the initial blog entry done (or in the case of video's, they still aren't done yet). - Note to reader's who've heard all this before, - it is not a pipe dream, we will take a few more days time off once we're farther south...

- Phylisej Blog Entries: My initial plan was to set Mom up so she could write her own entries. I thought it might be interesting to hear her perspective on things. However she hasn't been writing much and she definitely doesn't like using my laptop. She is welcome to write however and I try to encourage her, but she seems to be content with sending out postcards. She has also been taking a few pictures and I am way behind uploading those for her.

- Level of Detail in the bogs - seems like too much sometimes? Actually, I'd probably like to write more, but am staying up too late on these as it is. When we get back from the trip, I plan to print them all out and put them together in a binder as my journal from the trip. I don't remember things very well, so the journal will help me enjoy this trip for a much longer time. Sometimes we get a lot more detail that doesn't end up in the blog. This is probably good, as I'm probably putting everybody to sleep as it is. To me, it's all interesting however, so it's always an ongoing, if internal, battle as to what to put in the blog. So you may see a bit of variety - some days will be very detailed, some days less so. I have this fantasy that I'll actually go back and start expanding some of these entries someday to add more detail that is of interest to me... (probably like my fantasy/plan to start writing blog entries by category, not just by day). Who knows, stranger things have happened.

ps - I did get the letter written and emailed. We will be leaving Wal-mart in the morning.