Marty's Misadventures: The Delmarva Peninsula

Howdy pardner! Welcome to the wild, wild East!

The Delmarva Peninsula

and the Chesapeake Bay

Edie and Marty, April 2014

Self-contained bicycle camping tour

each color roughly represents one day's travel

jet trails over the potato warehouse

Gothic church with dancing tree

they don't build 'em like they used to

there's a house in there somewhere

April 16, 2014
We chose the Eastern Shore of Maryland for our annual Spring bicycle camping trip, as it is a quiet, peaceful refuge from the Washington D.C. area (on the Western Shore of Chesapeake Bay), about 3 weeks warmer than Cleveland (the trees are in bloom) and renown for its culture of crab and oyster fishing, a tradition since it's settlement in early Colonial days. On several of the offshore islands, isolated until modern times, people still speak in a distinct Elizabethan accent from Shakespeare's time.

Our trip is planned as a counter clockwise circumnavigation of the Eastern Shore (which includes Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia;) the Delmarva peninsula. We chose to stick with the Chesapeake shore first because the weather is a bit chilly (50s) and the winds from the NE which is where the other great waterfront is: Assateague and Chincoteague (as in the wild ponies - Misty of Chincoteague) sand barrier islands bordering Delaware Bay and the open Atlantic. We'll be there next week as it warms up.

Obligatory sunset on the Chesapeake

The cycling is very nice, on roads that rarely see salt and are very smooth. We've ceased to hunt for chuckholes as there aren't any. On the other hand there is glass everywhere, but in an odd way. They seem to use glass as an aggregate, mixing it with the asphalt, so with the sun shining as it has every day so far, all we see is the alarming glitter of glass on the roads. The glass, of course, is buried several inches deep in the asphalt and no danger to us, but the primeval instinct to swerve is hard to lose. Eventually, like the chuckholes dodging, we'll cease looking for it just in time to go home.

This is flat county. Maybe 20 or 30 feet of elevation change in a day. Except for the bridges that span the huge rivers entering the Chesapeake. These rivers are what made this part of the country so suitable for Colonial habitation. Big sailing ships could go miles up the rivers to pick up the rich agricultural produce and bring it along the coast and across the Atlantic.

The small towns of St. Michaels, Oxford and Cambridge are historic, a bit touristy and thoroughly immersed in the modern waterfront life of large power and sailboats. There are still a few of the original Chesapeake, Skipjacks sailing from these ports, taking tourists on sails around the bay, and fishing commercially for oysters in season.

We enter these towns looking for fine bread and gourmet ice cream, and I must regret to report that we've found neither. We actually had to resort to staying in motels on 2 consecutive days because of the lack of any campgrounds in the vicinity. We made up for it by cooking our traditionally awful camping meals right in the motel rooms. Our motel in Cambridge, 'America's Best Value' had some of the worst review comments ever. One star ratings...'never stay here again'...'cops woke me up arresting someone in a nearby room'...so we took turns sleeping while the other stood guard outside the door holding a bicycle pump like a shotgun. Actually we both slept soundly and didn't in the least mind not getting an offbrand complimentary breakfast. Instead we found a fortuitously located bike shop. And just in the nick of time.

On the mechanical front, I suffered a tiny pinhole through a former tube patch which required us to use the motel sink filled with water, to find the odd bubble escaping. Edie had a worse problem: a bulge in her tire. Our motel, fortuitously, was located about 200' from a bike shop and I put the tire on while she slept. The bike shop was really interesting. Called 'On The Rivet' for a phrase used in old time bicycle racing when all saddles were riveted leather, meaning that in the final sprint the cyclists were standing, their butts just in front of the front most rivet.

The young owner was quite passionate about old time bicycles and by a stroke of luck, came across the deal of a lifetime. An old fellow whom his wife was giving dancing lessons, had amassed an enormous collection of old bicycles in a leaky old barn. Despairing of ever doing anything with them he offered them all to the bike shop fellow for $4,000. What the bike shop owner got was several turn of the last century historic frames and hundreds upon hundreds of 1930s - 1960s bikes in. Various stages of rusting. But the components, he discovered, were worth 100 times what he paid for the bunch, as long as he could remove them from the vintage bikes and sell them on eBay to collectors looking for original equipment with which to restore bikes of their own. Vintage Schwinn handlebar grips with the name pressed into the plastic, rear racks with script 'S's embossed, derailleurs, shifters, hubs long since out of date, all made up this treasure trove. My favorite, and his, was an 1890s shaft driven bike (no chain) proudly displayed in the shop window and not for sale at any price.

The Bridge To Nowhere

And now a note from Edie....

Today we are at a private campground on the shore of the Chesapeake. We had a magnificent ride, 45 some miles along beautiful coastline, salt marshes and The Bridge to Nowhere, as they call it here. Just a lovely and, today, windy scenic road to land's end. We tried to get fresh fish at Old Salty's Restaurant, but they had some big pricey brunch thing for some holiday this Sunday*, and No, we could not buy just a fresh flounder sandwich to go. So it was back to camp for some pasta, which tasted darn good provided you cycled 45 miles beforehand.

garage with a view

derelict on the Chesapeake

RV on the sand bar, yep that's right

Cormorant couple

house ON the water

This is a wacky campground. Right on Chesapeake Bay, it is used mostly by fisherman-there is a nice ramp, docks and long term campers. It's a very friendly bunch, everyone says hi. The wackiest thing is the herd of bunnies. There are dozens of them hopping around, chasing each other and jawing on grass. When Marty woke up this morning he cried out in alarm to see some of our breakfast oatmeal spread out on the ground. He instantly thought the worst- raccoons had made off with ALL of it, but no... Just a little out of one package. THEN the bunnies gathered around and started nibbling on it. No guilt whatsoever, no shame, no apologies. Just nibbling. Luckily they could not reach the rest of the food stored in higher up panniers- only the oatmeal in Marty's front panniers which are low enough to the ground for them to hop in and root around. We got a big laugh out of it. Seems an interesting take on Easter, yes?

Greetings from Edie

*Easter Sunday

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Edie and I are heading south down the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay waiting for warmer weather so we can cross to the ocean side with the famous Assateague and Chincoteague barrier islands to explore.

At our Taylor's Island campground, a friendly woman told us about a special scrap of beach, where we'd find beach glass. Now, Edie is a beach glass hound and most folks keep their secret beaches to themselves, so it was unusual for this woman to confide hers. While we were away scouting in equal measure for beach glass and for quirky beach photos, she left a packet of beach glass for us on our picnic table with a note 'just in case you didn't get to that beach'. We went to find her at the campground only to be told that she'd gone home for Easter and wouldn't be back for 2 more weeks. Edie left a clever kind of thank you note that might last these 2 weeks: in downed twigs laid out to spell 'thank you' on our picnic table.

The beach was PAVED in beach glass

In the camp store, Edie overheard an older woman talking in low, serious tones on the phone about someone's husband who was dealing with his 'prostrate cancer'. Edie wondered if this was the result of a lifetime's over-indulgence in subservience.

We cycled south to a private campsite right on the Chesapeake coast on lovely flat, quiet roads that might not have seen more than one car every half hour. And the next day across a small cable ferry that crossed the Wicomico River and saved what would have been miles of riding to circumvent. Ferries are popular here as the rivers intrude far up the land from their mouths on the Bay and would otherwise prove a distinct disruption to transportation. And so we wound up at Crisfield.

Crisfield is a well known waterman's community standing opposite both Smith and Tangier Islands, the last inhabited islands on the Bay, not directly served by ferries or bridges. To get to either, you take private boats that regularly ply the waters. But not today. Today was our day off from riding after a week on the road. It was also planned as a day to walk the 4 miles into Crisfield to catch one of those boats to one of those islands for a famed crab cake lunch. The lunch was an important part of the plan as the gas canister I took with which to cook was a small one and ran out last night right in the middle of heating up spaghetti water. We ate pretzels for dinner. But today we walked into town and into a fierce 25 knot breeze gusting to 35 knots. Would the boats run?

Crabbing supplies

Sometimes you just have to wrap your entire house in tar paper...

Of course they would. The boats to the Islands always run. One hitch though...they weren't coming back...not until the next day. It seems that while 25 knot winds won't stop the boats, it will stop what few tourists are around. Without enough paying tourists they would only make the crossing to the islands to deliver the mail and then wait until the next day to return. As we were not planning on a B&B overnight on the islands (it was well above budget), we had camped at nearby Janes Island State Park at the Geezer discount purchased with a Maryland Golden Age card. Guess which one of us qualifies? The card paid for itself with just a 1 day overnight stay and we plan to camp in Maryland State Parks as often as we can. So we sadly gave up the idea of walking along a bitterly windswept island hunting for the fine crab cakes their restaurants are known for, but are not yet open for business, because of the late unseasonable wind and cold. Cold is relative. It's nearly 60 degrees.

To console ourselves and get out of the wind, which was nearly pushing us over, we stopped at the Visitor Information house and were greeted by a lovely woman who'd moved to Crisfield a decade ago from Florida and before that Atlanta, and was horrified at this winter's weather. Imagine having to wear a jacket in April. April! She told us all about a fine fish place every bit as good as the ones on the Islands. The only problem was that it was another 4 miles away partly down a fast, busy road. So we did what any hungry couple would do.

We started walking. Past the slightly dilapidated downtown shops most of which were closed. The only truly thriving businesses had the name '...Dollar...' on the big, bold sign. We walked out of town down the
busy road, me holding both the dry bag with some spare clothes and our electronic gear, and another holding some food shopping. The oncoming cars seemed to go out of their way to swerve and avoid us. I thought that was most polite of them until I realized what kind of impression we must have made: 2 middle aged (or older) folks walking down a highway carrying shopping bags. Swerve!

welcome home, deer

Americana

sewing machine with thread spool at the ready

A charming trio

Boy, that big flounder sandwich was excellent! Along with a slice of the famed Smith Island cake, tasting like a pale imitation of an 11 layer Dobos-Tort my ex-wife's grandmother used to make on special occasions.
Oh well. Now we get to play 'Homeless Again' as we head back down the busy road dead into the 25 knot wind back to our campsite with no fuel canister for the stove. Rumor has it that tomorrow's lunch stop in Pocomoke City has a Super Walmart where we surely shall find such a canister and be back to our frugal meals of cous cous, canned beans and tomato chunks. Topped with Parmesan cheese. Or we might find some delectable road kill on our way back. Maybe another not so nimble homeless couple.

not a good sign

an upright's porch

Anyone know a good waterproofer?

=======================================

We have abandoned the Chesapeake shore for the Atlantic on Delaware Bay.

We crossed a causeway over a bay and marshlands to arrive at Chincoteague, the real place where the mythical Misty the pony resided. Misty has unfortunately been displaced by hundreds of small cottages and a string of stores that are somehow designated as historic, although they are laid out end to end and too far apart to be comfortably walkable. Thankfully we are early in the season, and it is chilly, windy and therefore nearly deserted. This place would be awful with summer crowds. The city planners saw fit to line the causeway with about a hundred evenly spaced billboards advertising Chincoteague's delights. Instead of providing some kind of berm for cyclists on a 55mph road.

We had to pay a whopping $35 for camping on a nondescript spot in a campground sized for several hundred campers, dwarfing anything we'd had stayed in so far, and, despite its size, didn't accept credit cards. The next day we left but not before purchasing a simple baguette for a whopping $6.50, which I had broken in parts to fit in the bike before realizing the price.

Chincoteague island lies between the Virginia mainland and Assateague Island, which is an outer barrier island. On July 4 the local firemen round up the horses on Assategue, drive them across the bay to Chincoteague where they auction off the surplus, give some vet care to the remainder and send them swimming back to their sanctuary on Assateague.

Bottle Trees

North against the wind and inland on some lovely roads with downtrodden houses and a town which looked to be in a state of being dismantled. Along the way we stopped at the overly cutesy town of Berlin with over the top antique stores and a designation as one of the top 10 'coolest small towns in America'. I was glad not to be stopping at the other 9.

Nothing says 'welcome' like Wurlitzer in the front yard

weary traveler's rest

seat with a view

Finally we arrived at the bridge to Assateague Island, a completely natural seashore with both state and National park campgrounds. Here it was pretty wild, the dunes to shoreward, a lower area of sand where we camped and brush behind us. The wind was fierce off the ocean so we and every other tent camper too refuge behind whatever foliage we could find.

Edie had a clever idea, upon seeing the exposed location of our campsite, for me to leave the tent with her, cycle the mile back, get a better site and call her from the park office so she'd have the tent set up by the time I got back. We were snug in our refuge when the rain began and retreated to the park bathroom building where we found a nook in which to cook dinner. Our tent did just fine in the rain and by morning most things were drying out in the sunshine. We saw ample evidence of the ponies in the footprints and droppings they left behind in the sand by the campsites.

Out Of the Box Camping

A protected spot

On our way back across the bridge we saw more ponies on the beach and read a plaque that described how Assateague just barely escaped the fate of nearby Ocean City, an adjacent barrier island, when a developer, just about to get started in the 1960s with beach housing, was discouraged by a Hurricane that destroyed some of the infrastructure. He sold off to the state and federal governments and Assateague was preserved in it's natural state.

Along our route north to Ocean City we came upon the detritus of a Marathon run: dozens of discarded gloves, shirts, arm warmers, ear bands, along with hundreds of empty packets of energy gel. Apparently it is considered normal for Marathoners to litter the roadway in such fashion. We took it upon ourselves to clean up the roadside as we went along, picking up cotton/poly gloves, zip up hooded sweatshirts, and Under Armour and Champion long sleeve crews. Our altruism did not extend to the low-grade cotton T-shirts and sweatshirts that we left for others. Nor did we even THINK of attending to the gel packets. Our panniers are much fuller now.

We cringed as we crossed the causeway to Ocean City, but despite the honeytonk food stands, t shirts shops, fries and ice cream vendors, the lovely boardwalk and the beach and surf more than made up for it. We could barely maintain any pace along the Boardwalk, so crowded was it with Saturday strollers and shoppers. Even Edie got sucked in for over half an hour at a fancy needlework shop. We've had our seafood lunch and are on our way north to one of two Maryland oceanfront state parks, the latter being Cape Henlopen near where the ferry crosses Delaware Bay for Cape May, N.J.

Marty & Edie

honk if you're coming home

conversation

sunrise over the Atlantic

========================================

Delaware was a relief after the hustle and bustle of Ocean City and its extended development.

Delaware is the first state and they are proud to announce this on their license plates, in the absence of any other defining feature.

Delaware had a relatively undeveloped beachfront compared to what we'd already seen. It also had a gorgeous state park, called Cape Henlopen, right at the tip of the cape which divides the oceans beaches to the south from the marshes to the north. It is also the location of the town of Lewes, from whence the ferry leaves for Cape May, New Jersey. The park has several towers of up to 75' in height that were built during WWII to spot enemy ships attempting to attack the port of Philadelphia at the head of Delaware Bay. The towers would take sightings, and 3 sightings were sufficient for the big guns to accurately target the ships. No ships, however, came to attack Philadelphia so, although the towers never functioned in wartime, they function very nicely now as great lookout spots to see the coast with an excellent view of Cape May, way across Delaware Bay.

I made a fine navigational error allowing Google maps to plot our route north up the coast to Cape Henlopen. By choosing the bicycle option, Google decided that it would be okay for us to ride our bikes on the beach for several miles. This was not going to work with loaded touring bikes. At Rehoboth Beach I realized my mistake and was trying to find a way out when a friendly couple stopped us to chat and told us about a bike path shortcut, which saved us a good deal of time and deposited us right by the park.

We bumped into a group of cyclists from the Potomac Wheelmen, out for a weekend ride. One of the women was from Cleveland originally and her brother lived in...'what's the name of that nice town starting with an 'H'? She couldn't think of it so called her brother on the spot to find that it was Hudson.

The next day we toured Lewes, which is an upscale slightly touristy town but very pleasant and then set off west on the quiet backroads and farm towns to our starting point. We'd had 2 weeks of sunshine and no rain, but. 3 day storm was coming, so we were told by the locals, and instead of camping our last night and waking up to a sodden tent, we loads the bikes in late afternoon and drove through the rain instead, arriving home around 2am.

A very nice, relaxing trip. We recommend it.
April 28, 2014