Delaware: Images of the First State
Just when you think a 28-photo essay in The Atlantic is going to get you over your state inferiority complex ... you notice only seven are from New Castle County. Who doesn’t want to see how mushrooms grow?
Thanks from one of the fans, PVW.
We spent a recent week oceanfront in South Bethany. Excellent getaway if you like quiet...
-s.
DaveSchmidt said:
Photograph of Delaware mushrooms growing:
I was in one of those when I was working in recycling organics. --- smelled musky.
Until now, the only bit of DE I can claim personal experience with is the little bit of it you get driving down toward Baltimore and DC. We were down in VA this weekend and on the way back Waze sent us on an eastern detour to avoid traffic on 95 -- over the Bay Bridge to the eastern shore and up through Delaware from Middletown to Wilmington and the NJ turnpike.
It was dark by the time we hit DE, so I can't say I actually saw much of anything, but two things struck me:
- this is one of the least peopled parts of the mid-atlantic region I've seen. The MD side running up the the DE border especially felt especially empty. A bit more populated once we crossed the border and entered Middletown, but still pretty sparse. Far more populated than the big empty spaces you get out west, or than we saw in Maine a few years ago, but still quite the contrast to the megalopolis that is the I-95 corridor we took on the way down.
- I appreciate the DE dept of transportation having a sense of humor. Road alert sign messages included:
"It's hockey season, eh? Slower zambonis keep right" and "Who you gonna call? No one, you're driving."
You arrived at a fortunate time.
The density of Cecil County, Md. — “Gateway to Middletown” — is only 250 people per square mile. But you know where there’s a county that’s 22 percent emptier? New Jersey. (Salem County — “Visit for Cowtown, Stay for Elmer” — has 195 people per square mile.)
Looks like route 301 does clip through the corner of Cecil County on the way in to Middletown, though the stretch before that -- that struck me as especially empty -- was Kent County (population density 46 people per square mile). It was of course right at that stretch that the youngest passenger realized the urgent need for pit stop.
The sandy, low-lying land of the Eastern Shore was always an impediment to development, and the fishing and farms can offer only so much employment. Kent and Cecil Counties’ spacious youth campgrounds — Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, YMCA — were popular draws when I was growing up.
Maybe I'll have occasion to pass that way again sometime during daylight, as what I mainly saw was:
DaveSchmidt said:
Photograph of Delaware mushrooms growing:
It is longer, but personally I find extra hours on lower-trafficked, smaller highways leave me far less tired after a day of driving than interstate driving. We were lucky enough to cross the Bay Bridge before full dark fell, so had a nice view of the Chesapeake.
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I've heard some of you are fans. A photo collection:
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2020/06/delaware-photos/612937/
From a larger in-progress collection of all 50 states.