Delaware - The First State
Because Connecticut and Delaware are so close together, we visited both on the same trip. (Most of visiting all the states in alphabetical order is completely inefficient, but we took advantage of proximity whenever possible.) When I told Molly, one of my business partners at the time, about our upcoming trip to Connecticut and Delaware, she said, “Can’t you just skip Delaware? What’s in Delaware?” I informed her that, of course we could not skip Delaware. I didn’t know anything about it at the time, but there were a couple of memorable places we were happy to discover.
We spent two nights in Wilmington, and they just happened to be having Downtown Dino Days, a special exhibit in 2002 that featured 48 fiberglass dinosaurs decorated by local artists. Some were beautiful, some were hilarious, all were very creative. We have many photographs of ourselves posing with our favorite dinosaurs. In 2004, San Francisco did something very similar with hearts. I’ve often wondered if they got the idea from the dinosaurs of Wilmington.
Du Pont is an important name in Delaware and Wilmington is the home of Nemours, the gorgeous 300-acre country estate of Alfred I. du Pont. The mansion is described as a “modified Louis XVI French chateau” and it is just that lavish. It was built between 1909 and 1910 and contains 102 rooms. The gardens are one of the finest examples of French-style gardens in America. We loved our time there and it brought back memories of the three months we lived in France in the mid-60s.
Just ten minutes south of downtown Wilmington is Historic New Castle. The town is charming and wandering its cobblestone streets gave us the feeling of being back in colonial times; it was founded in 1651 by Peter Stuyvesant. While it is steeped in history, it is also a quaint town with many restaurants and interesting shops to visit.
We spent our last two nights in Delaware at Rehobeth Beach at the Boardwalk Plaza Hotel, right on the ocean’s edge. The boardwalk, which is one mile long, had so many wonderful shops to see, food to eat, art to enjoy, and people to watch. We learned that people come from many areas in the east to vacation at Rehobeth Beach and it is no wonder. At the time, there was a large gay population there and the artsy feeling was reminiscent of San Francisco. We were very glad that we didn’t skip Delaware!
