To the Delaware beach

Atlantic shore.

On Thursday after work (June 28, 2012), we packed the beach attire and camping gear and drove east a couple hours to the Delaware coast where I’d reserved the last available campsite at Cape Henlopen State Park.  Once the tent was unfurled, we dashed over to Rehoboth Beach for burgers on the boardwalk.  This was our first visit to this iconic beach town that various folks had been recommending.  Unlike the gaudy, overdeveloped clutter of Ocean City to the south, Rehoboth retains at least some of its quaint seaside flavor.  We strolled awhile, stared at the beach in the dark, listened to the breakers and grabbed an ice cream before moseying back to camp.  (The following October, Rehoboth was spared the worst of Hurricane’s Sandy’s wind and waves, though it rained five inches, flooded neighborhoods, and high seas ripped apart a road along the shore.)

The evening cooled to a comfortable 60 degrees or so and then warmed quickly when the sun rose early Friday morning.  We embarked on a pre-coffee stroll that lasted two hours, including a climb of a view tower amid the relics of an old military base, then aimed for the broad, white sands of what seemed like an endless beach.  The crowds were all still at Starbucks apparently, so after returning to camp to vacate our site, we hustled back to the beach and hoarded a nice stretch of sand and surf for the next number of hours.  Kris made like a mermaid, frolicking in the little breakers and then just sitting and letting the water wash over her.  I tried a little body surfing with spectacular runs of ten feet or so.  Okay, so they were small waves.

We would love to have stayed, but our next night’s accommodation was also the last reservable campsite at Assateague Island National Seashore, a short drive down the coast.  So we motored away from Henlopen, stopping in the town of Lewes just outside the park for that long awaited cup of joe.  This was our second visit to Assateague and the beach and weather were just as enjoyable as what we had left up the coast.  The campsite was a patch of deep, dry sand.  We dined and walked and tucked ourselves in for the night.  A sudden storm blew in around midnight and the gusts were strong enough to knock the tent over.  When the thunder started and heavy raindrops began pelting us, we opted to climb out of our bags and scamper to the car for better shelter.  I released the tent poles and dropped the ice cooler in the center of the heap, so it wouldn’t all blow away.  For the next hour and a half, we watched one of the more exciting lightning shows in memory, with constant flashing and booming in all directions.  Wind and rain had our camp neighbors scurrying around in the dark trying to keep their chairs, towels, coolers, umbrellas, flipflops and potato chips from sailing into the Atlantic.  The show quietly ended around 1:30 am and I slithered back into the tent and my rainsoaked sleeping bag.  I awoke at dawn feeling like a bar of Zest glued to a washrag.  It was a good thing Kris opted to stay in the car.

When the sun cleared the horizon, the air warmed rapidly and we spread things out to dry then cavorted on the beach well into the afternoon.  In the meantime, we learned that the storm had passed over Washington DC and a large swath of the mid-Atlantic region before it hit us and had caused considerable damage, much of it in the form of fallen trees, crunched cars and the like.  On the radio, they called it a Derecho and it would turn out to be one of the most damaging thunderstorm fronts in U.S. history.  From Iowa to DC, massive power outages left millions without air conditioning in the middle of an oppressive heat wave.  The beach was a wonderful 85 degrees or so with a light breeze, but it was pushing 100 in DC.  And the world’s most adorable cat, ours, was still at home potentially stuck in a hot apartment.  So we left our beachy bliss at Assateague sooner than we’d preferred.  In DC, the damage from the winds was quite a sight, with countless trees uprooted or snapped off.  The mess was everywhere.  For us and our kitty, all was well and we were already plotting our next trip to the Delaware coast.

Rehoboth Beach.