Day 276, Year 9: Cape Cod to Dover, Delaware
Date: Thursday, July 24, 2014
Weather: Mostly Cloudy, A Little Rain Here and There, Temp in the mid-70’s
Location: The Hampton Inn, Dover, Delaware
Mark and I started the day with the boys while Heather and Jed went to work. It was a rainy morning and the boys decided to dress up rain gear and go outside with the inflatable guns (ugh) they won at the Barnstable County Fair last night. Thankfully, that game lasted only a short time, but Jonah definitely got the award for the most outlandish costume!
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| 140724 Day 276 Cape Cod, USA–Rainy Day Activities |
Heather and Jed’s trip plan worked beautifully. We left East Falmouth at 4 pm (a little later than planned) and arrived here in Dover, Delaware just before mid-night. We went across the Tappan Zee Bridge rather than going through the city and across the George Washington Bridge as we wanted to avoid those famous ‘traffic problems’. Although travel was a bit slow until we reached the New Jersey Turnpike, we avoided any major traffic problems all the way. So, congrats to the planners for a job well done.
Heather and Jed chose Dover as a stopping place so that tomorrow we will have time to drive through Salisbury and over to Assateague Island in hopes of seeing the wild ponies before heading on down the Delmarva (Delaware-Maryland-Virginia) Peninsula to Norfolk and then on to Williamsburg. We lived in Salisbury from the summer just before Heather’s fourth grade school year until the summer before she entered tenth grade and she wants to share her old stomping grounds with Jed and the boys. Mark and I have been back to Salisbury only once since we left there in 1989. We won’t have time to stop and visit with friend tomorrow, but when we sail down this fall we do plan to linger in Chesapeake long enough to reconnect with friends.
I found the following information about Dover, Delaware on www.city.com and found it quite interesting. Thought maybe you would find it interesting as well. “At the time of the arrival of the first white men, the Lenape Indians lived along the banks of the Delaware River. The land where Dover now stands was part of a much larger grant called Zwaanendael (Valley of the Swans), where a group of Dutch patrons attempting to colonize it were killed by the local tribe in 1631. William Penn chartered Kent County, and Penn ordered his surveyors to lay out a town in 1683. In 1697, a court house was built at the site, but it was not until 1717 that Dover was plotted around a central green. By that time, most of the Native Americans had been forced to relocate elsewhere. Craftsmen and artisans such as cabinet makers, shoemakers, carpenters, tailors, and hatters shared the green with government officials and residents, as well as several inns and taverns. An Act of Assembly in 1742 provided for the establishment of a market square, and the 1751 census estimated the population of Kent County to be 1,320 families. In 1777, Dover became the capital of Delaware, largely because it was deemed safer from attack than the old capital, New Castle. Ten years later, in a Dover tavern, a Delaware convention ratified the Federal Constitution. Because it was the first to ratify, Delaware became known as ‘the first state’ and enjoys the highest level of seniority at ceremonial events.”
