Day 6: Finally, Delaware!

We have finally arrived at our destination: Lewes, Delaware; the first city in the first state. (photo above is the view from the porch of our condo)

We are quite excited about that but first I must document at least a few details about the boring stuff earlier in the day.

The fog lifted a little and the sun actually shone through for a bit to reveal a beautiful little lake in front of the Otter. As we ate breakfast we could now see that there was a footpath that would have allowed us to easily walk around the entire lake. Oh well.

We made what turned out to be a really good decision to leave the parkway and head west (briefly) to I-81. We took that about 150 miles north to I-66 which took us east to Washington D.C. where we took the beltway around to U.S. 50.

We waived at Tex in Annapolis before crossing the bay bridge onto Maryland’s eastern shore and before too long we were standing at the Delaware state line.

A light rain fell on us most of the way up I-81 and on I-66 until we had crossed the mountains. However, the color was spectacular. The dogwoods that had lined our path since Mississippi continued to show their white brilliance but now at the lower elevations the redbuds were also in full bloom. Virginia is indeed a beautiful place.

It was cool and windy as we ate lunch in the half-empty parking lot of a Home Depot in Manassas, Va. but by the time we found/stopped for a photo at the Delaware state line it was downright balmy; the warmest temperatures since we left Louisiana.

I know at other state line crossings into Delaware they do have larger signs welcoming drivers to Delaware and proudly proclaiming the state’s marketing slogan “Small Wonder” (which, frankly, I wonder about).

However, on state route 404, there is only the small sign you see in the photo below and we crept along on the shoulder of the highway looking for it.

Fortunately there was a turnout just past the sign, which was next to (of all things) a fire tower. By fire tower I mean the kind that people sit atop to watch for forest fires.

That seemed odd for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the lack of forests in Delaware. Another oddity was an obscure plaque that had been placed near the base of the tower in 1974 to commemorate the surveying of the southern border between Delaware and Maryland. You may have heard of the two surveyors, a Mr. Mason and a Mr. Dixon. What seemed odd to me was that we were not on the southern border of Delaware (a.k.a. the Mason-Dixon Line) we were a good 20-30 miles north of there on the state’s western border with Maryland. Why was this plaque placed at this place?

I joked to Betsy that this is probably the Delaware state fire tower, in other words from atop the tower a person could see across the entire state.

Actually that is not too far-fetched. Here are some factoids to help readers put Delaware in perspective.

Delaware is about 2,500 square miles, which is about twice the size of Bexar County. The state population is about 750,000, which is about half of Bexar County’s. The highest point in Delaware is 448 feet and the lowest point is, of course, sea level. Thus, to state the obvious, Delaware is very flat. Bexar County may not seem that hilly but the highpoint is over 2,200 feet and the low is less than 600.

There is a significant amount of agriculture in Delaware, with numerous tilled (and sometimes irrigated) fields and occasional grain silos. I even saw/smelled a feed lot for a dairy farm. There are lots and lots of roadside stands selling fresh fruits and vegetables.

Delaware also has a lot of small towns and there seem to be a plethora of strip malls and sprawl-type development. There also appears to be a lot of the “modest house on five acres next to a highway” type of development. I certainly would not characterize the place as rural, but Delaware is probably more rural than most people would think.

In summary, our 45-mile traverse across the state from the Maryland border to the Atlantic Ocean at Lewes fell somewhere between bucolic and butt ugly.

However, when you arrive in Lewes via State Route 404/U.S. 9 the only appropriate description for the intersection with State Route 1 is butt ugly. Gas stations, chain groceries, Home Depot, etc. etc. etc. are splayed out along SR 1 in a dysfunctional assemblage that appears to have been designed to make the town as unattractive as possible.

Fortunately, the further you drive into Lewes the better it gets.

The core of the town’s residences are well-preserved mostly frame structures on small streets interspersed with a nice mix of churches, a library, and an occasional appropriately-located business.

It just has a very clean, comfortable feel to it.

The downtown consists of about 3 streets that parallel a canal that is crossed by a drawbridge. The buildings in the downtown are mostly brick and have been either carefully restored or exceptionally well-maintained. There is a bank or two but most of the downtown businesses cater to tourists, either restaurants or retail, and these establishments are surprisingly upscale. In other words, there are no little shops selling seashells and tie dyed t-shirts.

The canal, the drawbridge and the downtown are about a ½ mile from the town beach. Crossing over the bridge there are some strip malls with a restaurant or two, a motel, an ice cream stand and a Dairy Queen strung out along the main road. But for the most part the side streets are a mishmash of houses and most of those houses appear to be vacation homes, many of them available for rent.

We are in one of the few apartment/condo type of buildings and also one of the few to have a direct view of the water.

We checked in with the realtor to get our keys and arrived to find that the exterior of the 12-unit condo building is under construction. Parking in the area is at a premium but there is one of those huge trash containers that contractors use at construction sites plunked down in the parking lot in front of our unit, taking up about five parking spaces. Also, just outside of our front door is a port-a-potty for use by the construction workers who will reportedly start using their nail guns at 7:30 a.m. every morning.

We are going to try to parlay this inconvenience into getting a discount on our rent but the fact of the matter is that, once you get inside, the place is perfect with an awesome living area and porch on the second floor that looks out to the beach.

We talked at some length with the condo HOA treasurer (his wife is the president) and he said the contractor and his workers are exceptionally nice folks. It will be interesting to see how this all works out.

After we got unpacked we went back out to the butt ugly highway to the Food Lion supermarket (which is a very nice store) “just to get a few things for breakfast” and ended up with $200 worth of stuff not counting beer (which is not sold in grocery stores in Delaware).

Of course we stopped at the liquor store to pick up a variety of Delaware-brewed beverages (more details on this will surely come in future posts).

We drank a couple of beers on the porch as the sun set (we face northeast and cannot directly see the setting sun) and watched the ferry for Cape May, N.J. take off. Then we walked downtown for a late supper.

                                          Condo living area

                                          Our "reserved" parking area.

Day 5: Moving north, going with the flow

With the help of the fog and rain we came to the conclusion that our plan to drive the entire length of the parkway was a little too ambitious.

Thus we drove north from the Pisgah Inn to a visitor center near Asheville so that we could have someone there confirm what we already knew.

We then left the BRPW and drove east on I-40 and then north on I-77 to Mt. Airy, North Carolina; the town that inspired Andy Griffith’s Mayberry.

While the Andy Griffith Show is long gone Andy and Opie and Bea Taylor, Barney, Goober, Floyd, Howard, Helen Crump and Thelma Lou live on.

Indeed, Mt. Airy has a deep, lasting and slightly-creepy embrace with the long-gone, fictional town of Mayberry.

A life-sized cardboard cutout of Barney Fife greeted us at the large, well-marked, well-staffed visitor center where a very helpful lady produced a map of Mayberry-esque sites for us to see and a helpful list of cross-references between people who actually lived in Mt. Airy when Griffith was growing up and the characters they became in the television show.

It was a long list that started with Floyd the barber.

She also pointed out several sites on Main Street, including a two-chair barbershop named – of course – Floyd’s. She also mentioned that, for $30 we could take a guided tour of all of the Mayberry sites in a replica of Sheriff Andy Taylor’s “squad car”.

Mt. Airy is a much larger than Mayberry and I feel certain that it is patrolled today by more than one sheriff with only one deputy and one squad car.

It was interesting to me to contrast Mt. Airy’s full-throated embrace of its connection with fame than the decidedly more understated approach that Tupelo has taken. Don’t get me wrong, Tupelo does not shy from the considerable benefits that come from being Elvis’s hometown. For instance, the complex at the birthplace (where the photos in the earlier post were taken) is at least partially city-funded.

However, Elvis does not dominate Tupelo in the same way that Andy dominates Mt. Airy.

Unfortunately we did not have time for the squad car tour of Mt. Airy and we pressed north into Virginia where we were soon back on the BRPW – and back in the fog and rain.

Our late picnic lunch stop was brief because it had turned downright cold.

About 5:30 and shrouded in a dense, cold fog we arrived at our destination for the night; The Peaks of Otter Lodge.

All of the lodges along the BRPW (I think there are five or six) are nice but very basic accommodations that were constructed in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Otter opened in May, 1974. There are no phones (except a payphone or two), no internet and no cell phone signal. This lack of communication technology forces patrons to read material printed on paper, converse with one another or –if they get really bored – to walk around outside in the woods and observe up close the Dogwood blossoms that have plentifully adorned the roadsides for our entire trip on both parkways.

The man at the front desk told me that there are two inns that will not open this year because the park service has been unable to find a suitable concessionaire. I will say that the concessionaires running both Otter and Pisgah are doing an exceptional job. The places are clean, the food is excellent and fairly priced and the staff is friendly and helpful.

I’m certainly no fan of “privatization” for the sake of privatizing and there is nothing wrong with having a federal park operated by government employees. However, there are some operations the government is not well-suited to operate and hotels and restaurants are two of them. My compliments to NPS for realizing this and for finding good concessionaires.

The visitor center in Asheville was new and equipped with modern technology but for the most part the facilities along the parkway have that distinct 60s and 70s feel. That said, everything seems to be in good repair, including the road surface which has been grade A for the entire route with only a few grade B exceptions.

                                                       Enjoy that hair while you've got it Opie.

Day 4: Kitsch, Views, Twists & Turns

With less than 200 miles to travel this is, by far, the shortest driving day on the week-long trip east and it began with the long, slow drive from I-40 to Smokey Mountains National Park on U.S. 441.

I am not exaggerating when I say that the 30-mile portion of 441 through Sevierville, TN that leads to the park may well be the ugliest stretch of highway in the United States.

The sheer volume of chain restaurants is breathtaking but what really sets this stretch road apart from thousands of others like it is the unabashed, unbridled effort that is being made to sell products that have no lasting value.

As Betsy said it’s like a linear outlet mall devoted exclusively to selling products only seen on TV.

But that’s not all. After you’ve bought all of the snuggies, workout equipment and kitchen appliances that you need – and had a nice meal at all three of the Cracker Barrels – you will, of course, need to be entertained.

My personal favorite was the replica of the Titanic, complete with iceberg.

Of course, with all of these thousands of businesses competing for attention, signage is critical. I think there may be more signs on U.S. 441 outside the park than there are trees inside the park.

My personal favorite was the sign for a barbecue restaurant that was fashioned in the shape of a huge smoker complete with “smoke” wafting from the vent pipe. Embedded into the center of the smoker was a huge digital screen that played an endless loop of barbecued meats being forked from the grill, cut up and consumed by happy patrons.

Finally, we escaped into America’s most-visited national park. Even on a weekday in April it was crowded. Inexplicably SMNP is one of the few major parks in the NPS system that does not charge an entrance fee. Truly, this is a park that is being loved to death.

We stopped in at the visitor center and watched a nice film of scenes from the park that we had no chance of seeing ourselves.

We then drove to the parking area for the short (but quite steep) trail to Clingman’s Dome. The highest point in Tennessee and the second-highest in the eastern U.S. On a previous trip here we ascended the highpoint in a driving rain and visibility was zero. However, today the air was quite clear and the cloud deck was high enough that virtually every distant mountain was visible, including the east’s highest point, Mt. Mitchell, 73 miles to the east.

Cool, clear and overcast it was really a spectacular day to view the Smokeys. We pulled out folding chairs and set them on the edge (literally) of the parking lot and ate our picnic lunch while taking in the magnificence splayed out below us. Best of all, even from this lofty perch, we could not see a single smoking sign.

Having crossed back and forth between Tennessee and North Carolina on the drive up to Clingman’s  Dome we turned south into North Carolina for good on the drive down hill and entered the Blueridge Parkway on the southern edge of SMNP.

The southern section of the BRPW twists and turns more than any other section and treated us to some spectacular views with plenty of “smoke” (mist and small clouds). Unfortunately, just as we neared our  destination – the Pisgah Lodge (once part of the sprawling Vanderbilt Estate) – the “smoke” turned into real fog and real rain.

No matter, we read some, ate a nice meal in the lodge restaurant and the fog lifted once or twice to give Betsy a chance to snap a photo or two from our porch.

Believe it or not this is a remarkably clear view from Clingman's Dome, the highest point in Tennessee and the highest point in SMNP.

Day 3: Thanks for the memories Elvis

We forget sometimes that our main purpose this week is to drive to the east coast and not so much to sight see along the way.

Reality hit home when we left the Natchez Trace Parkway for I-40 around 5 p.m. yesterday and proceeded to crawl bumper-to-bumper through Nashville’s grinding rush hour and then white-knuckled it over the mountains in the fog with about a zillion 18-wheelers to Knoxville, which turns out to be in the eastern time zone.

Suffice to say we arrived at our destination in Strawberry Plains, Tennessee (just east of Knoxville) about 10 p.m. EDT and settled for leftover Popeye’s chicken in the room.

The less than stellar end to the day belied a very nice start in Tupelo and another relaxing middle, as we drove the beautiful northern end of the Natchez Trace.

Tupelo is a surprisingly nice, bustling, attractive little city…not exactly what I had expected to see in rural Mississippi. Also, everyone we encountered was exceptionally nice and friendly. I got a good vibe from Tupelo.

We got to Elvis’s birthplace ahead of the crowds and looked around at the free stuff, which was all we needed. Plus, of course, the gift shop; which was a hoot.

I’ll let the photos below tell this story.

We left the Trace briefly to ascend to the summit of Woodall Mountain, the highest point in Mississippi. It was Betsy’s 14^th state highpoint and (I’m pretty sure) my 9^th “double”. Among highpointers Mississippi is widely considered to be the ugliest of the highpoints and, having now been there twice, I have to agree that it is near, if not at, the top (or should I say bottom?) of the list.

Not too long after we passed into Tennessee we stopped for a cool picnic where it was necessary to pull out the jackets. Again today we saw a lot of wild turkeys along the road including several big toms. We also stopped to see Meriwether Lewis’s grave site and hiked a short distance to a really cool waterfall.

The story is muddled, but Lewis is thought to have either been killed or, possibly, to have killed himself in 1809 while traveling on the trace on his way from St. Louis to Washington D.C. (which seems like an odd route for such an experienced traveler to have taken). Thirty-nine years later the state of Tennessee saw fit to construct a rather large marker amongst the otherwise modestly-marked grave sites in the makeshift cemetery. It is one of many small, mostly-forgotten cemeteries sprinkled along the Trace.

The further north we went the hillier it got, affording some spectacular views and the aforementioned waterfall.

The jog from the northern terminus of the Trace to I-40 was quick, maybe five miles, and you already know what happened after that.

Betsy relaxes on the porch of Elvis's boyhood home.

Betsy tries to seduce a 13-year-old Elvis.

Dave reads from the Good Book to emphasize a point during his powerful sermon at the Elvis Chapel titled "Jesus didn't wear no blue suede shoes".

Another view of the chapel after the large crowd that gathered to hear the word from Preacher Pasley had dispersed and headed off to Cracker Barrel for a late breakfast.

Betsy contemplates which version of Elvis is her favorite.

Betsy celebrates at the summit of her 14th state highpoint.

Day 2: Pastoral Mississippi

There was a whole lot of shaking going on here in Tupelo, Mississippi last night. No, ‘m not talking about Elvis I am talking thunderstorms and this strange stuff that fell out of the sky…I think they call it ray-in (note the Mississippi accent).

We really enjoyed our day in Mississippi and were thankful to put the last, long, ugly 70 miles of Louisiana behind us.

Crossing the river into Natchez was almost like going into a different country. They have a huge visitor center on the bluffs overlooking the river (yes, it is BIG river) where we picked up information and directions.

We drove through the narrow streets of the well-kept town and were soon on the Natchez Trace Parkway headed northeast.

This is my second time to use the parkway as a route east and it is really a pleasure. The speed limit is 50 and it is all two-lane with no shoulders. However the traffic is very light, there are no stop signs or traffic lights, and the setting is pastoral. Plus there are tons of pullouts and picnic areas and interesting things to see and we really enjoyed the 260 miles from Natchez to Tupelo.

Once again the hotel had a happy hour with beer on tap and we walked to a nearby Italian restaurant. We wanted catfish but the lady at the front desk told us that was served only on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. That sounded odd but calls to a couple of restaurants confirmed this.

Day 1 : Louisiana is a dump

I am posting this entry from Alexandria, Louisiana.

Because this is a family blog and some readers may have delicate vocabularies I will try to be circumspect in describing my feelings about Louisiana’s place among the states of our union. However, my circumspection will require your imagination.

I want you to start by pretending that the lower 48 states have taken on a human form. This guy/gal would be roughly 2,000 miles tall and 3,000 miles wide (actually, I may have seen this lady in the checkout line at Wal-Mart last week). Thus, if you are standing behind Mr./Ms. America, Florida would be the right leg and California would be the left leg.

OK, have you got that image in your mind?

Good.

Now imagine which body part Louisiana would be (hint: if medical attention is required call a proctologist).

Betsy was a little more delicate, comenting that if Louisiana was small child it would be so ugly the parents would have to hang a pork chop around the kid’s neck to get the family dog to play with it.

I know, I know; we are visitors here and should try to say something nice so I am going to go above and beyond the call and say two nice things about Louisiana.

First, I think Louisiana is a great place because it provides a buffer between Texas and Mississippi.

A second reason I like Louisiana is because - by comparison – it makes Oklahoma seem not quite so bad.

See, that wasn’t so difficult; was it?

Seriously, the only reason we stopped here in Alexandria, LA. (which is exactly the kind of dump you would expect it to be) is because it seemed to be the closest city of much size on a logical route to our real destination which is Natchez, MS.

Natchez is the starting point for the Natchez Trace Parkway which we will use to drive northeast to Nashville over the next two days.

We started out driving east on I-10 with a quick detour to Moulton where we had left some hats at a restaurant on a trip earlier this month. (note to Bill, we got them)

We flew through Houston. And I am not kidding; no bumper to bumper, etc. it was 60-70 mph most of the way. The Katy Freeway now has about two dozen lanes with HOV and toll roads, etc. It is a monument to America’s unsustainable lifestyles but man was it great!!

For lunch we had a nice serendipity with a stop at a Corps of Engineers dam site at the mouth of the Trinity River. They had some nice picnic areas and a small visitor center. The concept there (a 60s era project) is to dam the Trinity to control the flow of fresh water into Trinity bay and minimize releases from Lake Livingston. 

I’d be interested to know what the environmentalist think about it. At any rate it was cool to be right there in the middle of the Trinity’s massive delta.

When we arrived at the motel just before 7 they were finishing up a happy hour in the breakfast room and had a guy pouring from a big pitcher of beer. It turned out we were the only beer drinkers and he let us sit in there for more than an hour finishing off the pitcher.

The nearby Cajun Landing was recommended for supper and we walked over only to discover they closed at 8:30 (we arrived about 8:35).

Fortunately there was a Popeye’s Fried Chicken nearby and we were able to at least get some red beans and rice.

This was our biggest and least interesting driving day and it went better than I expected, but I am glad to have it over with.

Why Delaware? Small Wonder!

Day Zero

The idea of spending a month in Delaware started as joke, in June 2002, when Tex and I drove through the “First State” and marveled at its smallness, its obscurity and its lack of distinctiveness.

Think about it. Delaware is tiny, yet it does not have the distinction of being the smallest state. Its largest city is essentially a suburb of a city in another state. Its best-known politician is the vice-president. Delaware is the only state with no national parks and the primary reason most of us have even heard of the place is because Wilmington is the return address on 92 percent of our junk mail.

“We should spend an entire vacation touring Delaware,” I joked back in 2002. “If we stayed for a week we could spend one full day in each county…(punch line)…but then, what we would we do for the other four days?”

We laughed. Ha, ha, ha. However, as sometimes happens in the Pasley family, the “joke” took on a life of its own and, over time, the idea of a long vacation in the First State became ever more appealing.

Fast forward to 2010 and Betsy’s decision to retire in 2011 – when Tex will graduate from college in Maryland (a state that conveniently borders Delaware and once made a dubious claim to the colony; see footnote below).

I could prattle on, but I think you get the idea.

We leave on April 18. We will drive east and north via the Natchez Trace Parkway and the Blue Ridge Parkway. We will arrive at our beachfront condo in Lewes, DE on April 23 and will stay there until May 21. We will return via New York, Cleveland and Detroit (where unvisited baseball parks await). We should be home by June 1.

During our stay in Lewes there will be three side trips to Annapolis; for croquet, Tex's defense of his senior essay and, of course, the graduation ceremony. Those important side trips notwithstanding, our focus will be on Delaware.

I plan to write a daily account of our activities, but I may not get them all posted each day.

For more information on the Delaware Blue Hen, St. John's College, Croquet and Tex's senior essay you can navigate to the separate pages for those topics from the tabs at the top of this home page.

We invite you to bookmark this blog site and check in every now and then to see how we are doing and (hopefully) learn a little something (pun intended) about Delaware.

If you sign up for a Google account you can comment directly on this blog. It's not all that difficult but I have noted that most of the people that have posted comments on one of my blogs in the past have post-graduate degrees.

Of course if you feel compelled to opine or otherwise communicate more directly you can send me an e-mail any time. I'll likely check my e-mail once a day.

Finally, as Texans accustomed to looking at Texas highway maps, we are quite amused by the scale of the official Delaware highway map. Check out the photos of the map below.

Warning: Objects may be smaller than they appear.

Mileage chart with no three-digit numbers!

Footnote: The Delaware Colony was initially claimed by both Maryland and Pennsylvania. Following is some information about this claim from Wikipedia:

The Dutch were the first Europeans to settle in present-day Delaware in the Middle region by establishing a trading post at Zwaanendael, near the site of Lewes in 1631. Within a year all the settlers were killed in a dispute with area Indian tribes. In 1638 New Sweden, a Swedish trading post and colony, was established at Fort Christina (now in Wilmington) by Peter Minuit at the head of a group of Swedes, Finns and Dutch. The colony of New Sweden lasted for 17 years. In 1651, the Dutch, reinvigorated by the leadership of Peter Stuyvesant, established a fort at present-day New Castle, and in 1655 they conquered the New Sweden colony, annexing it into the Dutch New Netherland. Only nine years later, in 1664, the Dutch were conquered by a fleet of English ships led by Sir Robert Carr under the direction of James, the Duke of York. Fighting off a prior claim by Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, Proprietor of Maryland, the Duke passed his somewhat dubious ownership on to William Penn in 1682. Penn strongly desired access to the sea for his Pennsylvania province and leased what then came to be known as the "Lower Counties on the Delaware" from the Duke.

Penn established representative government and briefly combined his two possessions under one General Assembly in 1682. However, by 1704 the Province of Pennsylvania had grown so large that their representatives wanted to make decisions without the assent of the Lower Counties and the two groups of representatives began meeting on their own, one at Philadelphia, and the other at New Castle. Penn and his heirs remained proprietors of both and always appointed the same person Governor for their Province of Pennsylvania and their territory of the Lower Counties. The fact that Delaware and Pennsylvania shared the same governor was not unique. From 1703-1738, New York and New Jersey shared a governor. Massachusetts and New Hampshire also shared a governor for some time.

Dependent in early years on indentured labor, Delaware imported more slaves as the number of English immigrants decreased with better economic conditions in England. The colony became a slave society and cultivated tobacco as a cash crop, although English immigrants continued to arrive. Before the Revolution, it had begun to shift to mixed agriculture.