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Published: December 2nd 2007
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Obfuscator writes: We woke up at Lum's Pond to a beautiful red sky at sunrise. Onaxthiel scurried out of his bivvy as quickly as he could to get pictures, but I fear even his haste was not enough to catch the best of it. The park we were in didn't look like much, so we got moving quickly.
Our destination for the day was New Castle. We had been told back in Dover that Historic New Castle was really pretty, with neat museums, and that it was well worth a stop. We got to New Castle early, before 9, and found that most of it wasn't open yet. We wandered about for a bit, looking at the building exteriors, the green, and some statuary. They have a nice statue of William Penn in their green, because Delaware started out as a part of Pennsylvania, before they petitioned to have a separate colonial government and such. Penn granted this request, and so naturally, they felt some gratitude, I guess. New Castle was pretty much the most important city in Delaware at the time, and was the capitol until the American Revolution.
Since we couldn't find much to see at that
early hour, we wandered into a small bakery/coffee shop called Daily Bread to grab some breakfast and kill some time. We got a good price ($4 for four pastries, tea, and a soft drink), and sat down to read the paper for a while. There wasn't much of too much interest, except in the Obituaries, I found one of an old woman whose husband “predeceased her.” Onaxthiel and I decided that “predeceased” was a particularly good euphemism for the living, and stored that little nugget away for future use. (Onaxthiel adds: I am pretty sure that what the writer intended with this unusual word was PRECEDED , but in the spirit of politically correct phrases, we think, -no, wait., we FEEL,- this is a kinder way to refer to the living that still respects the feelings of the pulse impaired. Not that calling them pulse impaired is intended to imply inferiority in anyway.)
We waited until almost 9:30 before heading back to the Old Courthouse Museum, only to find that they didn't open until 10:00 AM. Somewhat annoyed, we wandered over to a nearby Episcopal Church (Immanuel?), which looked pretty and historic. Its sign stated it was closed for
restoration, but the cemetery, which like the one in Lewes abutted the church, was open and lovely. We wandered around the cemetery for a while, reading tombstones and looking for interesting things. We found some very touching inscriptions, and very old graves that were in great shape. We found a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a fist full of governors that that switched affiliations from pre- to fully deceased, former state supreme court justices, and a buddy of Benjamin Franklin's, whose epitaph was written by the man himself. All in all, one of the more interesting cemeteries we've been in.
We did eventually get into the Courthouse Museum, where a kindly predeceased gentleman showed us around. Apparently the courthouse was also the colonial capitol for quite a while, and the state capitol until they realized that their capitol would be far more secure if they moved it further from the coast, and settled on Dover. We learned why Delaware always had 3 judges in their trials until quite recently, and saw the room where the Delaware legislature met until the capitol was moved. We got a lot of clarification on the story of why it was so critical
for Caesar Rodney to ride from Dover to Philadelphia in the middle of the night to cast a tie breaking vote for Independence on behalf of Delaware. We also learned a lot more about the gentleman who “voted against Independence,” and how he wasn't such a bad patriot after all (he enlisted in the Continental Army and fought for independence, even though he wouldn't vote for war). On a side note, we would like to thank the state of Delaware for using predeceased guides in their official tours. Except for Boston, where our pulse impaired guide was quite helpful and informative, pulse impaired guides tend to do rather poorly at their jobs, never adding anything to the official texts of exhibits except low moans of “brains.” These tours almost invariably end poorly, with Onaxthiel trying to explain to the police officers that yes, he really felt threatened and no, he is not now and has never been a drug user.
After we saw that museum, we wandered over to another museum called the Amstel House. The Amstel House was the home of several prominent New Castle residents, but perhaps most interesting to us, it was a home in which
George Washington attended a wedding reception in 1784. This was interesting, because the previous day in Dover we had seen a mural commemorating this event on the wall in the House of Representatives, so we were pleased to see that the building still stood. The house is in excellent repair, and they have all sorts of authentic 18th Century artifacts and furnishings. They've also done their best to make the house look just as it did at that time, down to the paint colors and condition of the flooring.
This museum was also linked to another, called the Dutch House. The Dutch House is an authentic artisan's home that's stood since the 1690s. Obviously, it's much smaller, and more modest, but it was also fascinating. Moreover, they had also put all sorts of neat Dutch artifacts in the home, so it was not just a window into the period, but into a specific ethnic group in the period. They also had a cool official bible from I think 1718, in Dutch.
By the time we were done with these museums, we were ready to get some lunch and move on. We had been told that the Arsenal was
a good restaurant, so we went there. It's in a neat old building (which was a gunpowder factory, if I recall correctly), right on the green, between the Courthouse and the church. The food was pretty good and they had sweet potato fries, which were an interesting treat, if not something I'd probably order again. It was a nice meal.
We left New Castle after that, and set off to drive through the western part of the Delmarva Peninsula, which would be the Chesapeake side of it in Maryland. We found the first Catholic Church in Maryland just across the border, called Old Bohemia Church. It was really pretty in an old and simple sort of way. The church wasn't open though, so we couldn't get inside, and we drove on. There were a few other interesting looking things along the peninsula, but it was getting late, so we instead drove back to near Ocean City, and found a campsite in the Assateague National Seashore, where we camped right next to the beach, in wild pony country. (Onaxthiel adds: Also the land of even more deer that have been protected from Darwinism than Glacier.)
Lessons learned: Our fix
on the pot we use for doing dishes worked out. The washer and nuts held well. This was the first time we really ended up using these since the repair. Checking a map before heading to Assateague might have warned us away from camping there. The camp site is located on a slip of land about 300 meters wide between a large bay and the Atlantic. The wind coming across us all night was a bit harsh. At least the icy night provided some decent views of the stars.
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