Delaware Trip 5

Before we ever left for Delaware, my father announced plans repeatedly to take my older son fishing. (He must have been affected by those "take me fishing" ads or something.) I have always been completely ambivalent about this plan -- we've done our best to raise our kids never to want to kill anything, even insects, and while I get the idea of taking responsibility for seeing where one's food is coming from if one is not a vegetarian, I also think kids do not need to be held responsible for killing their own dinners -- but older son seemed interested enough that we did not interfere. The day before yesterday, younger son announced that he wanted to go, too, and and I anticipated potential disaster...I think he was jealous that grandpa had this whole plan with his older brother in which he had not been included, but he hadn't actually thought about the fishing part.

So this morning my father got my kids and everyone else up at 6 a.m. to get ready to go deep sea fishing. Younger son was out the door with them, smiling...and then he was back before the car left, tearful, wanting to go on the boat but not wanting to kill fishies. As it happened, no one caught anything anyway besides a skate and a shark, both of which were thrown back in -- older son was therefore not traumatized -- but and I spent the entire morning with just younger son, who was extremely chatty without his brother around, both at the beach and then at the pool when we'd all had enough salt in our eyes. After a late post-fishing lunch, my father decided to take both boys to the aquatic center, so we went to Floators, a big nautical gift and collectibles store, which is right near the Fenwick Island Lighthouse and the Transpeninsular Line that originally established the border between the lower counties of Pennsylvania and Maryland (lots of streets near here are named "Mason Dixon Lane" and the like).

For dinner we planned to go to Nicola Pizza in Rehoboth Beach -- famous for rolled-up Nic-O-Bolis -- but just after we ordered, the power went out. At first we thought it was just the restaurant, then just the street, but we eventually learned that there had been a transformer fire that caused blackouts all over Rehoboth and Dewey. We tried to eat but in the 90+ degree restaurant in near-darkness, it was just no fun, so we took our food to go and came back to the condo to eat. After that we needed something cold, so since we had been deprived of the much longer Rehoboth boardwalk, we went to Bethany's boardwalk and got ice cream. And then we watched The Bourne Supremacy, which we all agreed was very good until the way too long Russian car chase at which point we were all rolling our eyes. Still, Joan Allen...rrrowr.


Bethany Beach from the boardwalk just after sunset.


Mermaid statues and buoys -- the original items of interest -- for sale at Floators.


The Fenwick Island Lighthouse, now quite a distance from the water, just at the border of Delaware and Maryland.


These concrete towers, left over from the defenses during World War II, line the beaches from Rehoboth to Ocean City.


The model train and menu at Nicola's Pizza, just before the electricity went out. (I wondered whether local power could have been saved if all the restaurants shut their trains, fountains, Miller Beer signs, etc.)


The bridge at the Indian River crossing, where the fishing boats leave for the ocean.


And on the Bethany boardwalk after dark, hermit crabs for sale in fancy painted shells -- see Spider-Man and SpongeBob and the Baltimore Ravens -- hanging from the ceiling, even though the bottom of the cage had very few crabs.

Eek, tornado in Brooklyn! My uncle said it wasn't near him but that's still scary! Hope everyone's all right!