Running from the Rain

I never should have crossed that bridge.

The Delaware Memorial Bridge connects New Castle, Delaware to Pennsville, New Jersey.  We crossed the bridge to eat at the Cracker Barrel restaurant and to camp out in their parking lot overnight.  Coming back across this morning, when I drove through the toll both, the sign indicated that the toll was not paid.  There should be plenty in the account; I’ll sort this out later.

Now that it’s later, I’m figuring out what went on.  Two days ago we made two trips across the I-80 toll bridge at Delaware Water Gap. The first toll was $9.00, the second was $22.50.  Looking up the rates, I determined that they had mis-charged me the second time, and overdrawn the account.  When I came over the bridge this morning, it couldn’t be paid.

Looking it up on the Delaware website, there is no way to pay the toll online unless you have a toll violation number, which you don’t get until you receive the violation in the mail, complete with a penalty charge.

So I will have to call into the labyrinth of the Delaware Department of Transportation on Monday to see if I can sort this all out.

That is shaping up to be one expensive meal.

The rest of the day was not as frustrating as this.  We drove into New Castle after crossing the expensive bridge, as Deb wanted to see New Castle, which is a National Historic Landmark as it contains one of the highest concentrations of historic buildings with some of them built in the 1600’s.  I dutifully drove through town, which, being that old, has very narrow streets.  I felt like I was driving a barge.  Fortunately, being a rainy Sunday morning, there was not a lot of traffic, so I didn’t get in the way of too many other cars.  We drove through town, looking for a place to park, finally following signs for bus parking to the edge of town.  It was pouring buckets at this time, so walking was out.  We sat in the RV and streamed our church service.

Once this was done, we drove back through town.  One street was made of stones.  Not gravel, not pavers, but large whole stones the size of grapefruits and larger, which made it extremely bumpy.  I had to drive very slow to keep the RV from shaking itself apart.

Since it was still raining, we continued south on State Route 9.  Looking at the weather map, I figured we could skirt the front edge of Tropical Storm Ophelia, which was moving up through Virginia to the west of us at this time.  Perhaps we could get far enough south of the storm to leave the rain behind.

Seems like we are always running from the weather.

We stopped in the tiny town of Leipsic, which appeared to be just a few buildings and a surprisingly large volunteer fire department building.  We made lunch in their parking lot.  Although much of the route goes through corn and soybean fields, the building next door spoke to the proximity to the ocean, with lots of floats and crab cages piled up behind it.

As evidence of the recent storm, a couple places on the road had signs saying “Water Over Road”, and one section was even partially blocked, saying the road was flooded.  I drove cautiously past the barricade and, while there were a couple puddles on the road, the water had largely receded.   They just had not taken the signs down yet.

The pleasantness of this route vanished when it went through a couple beach towns, particularly Ocean City. High-rise resorts block the view of the ocean to the left, and numerous businesses, many of them surf-related, line the street to the right.  It reminded me of Panama City or Daytona Beach and the going was slow, even on a gloomy Sunday afternoon with light traffic, because of the multitude of traffic lights.  I was glad to finally be done with that stretch.

We arrived at Assateague Island, our destination for the day and made a stop at the visitor center. We took a short hike to the Rackliffe House, which was constructed in the 1740’s.

I noticed some fluid dribbling from the RV and figured out that the bottle of chemical treatment for the blackwater tank had chafed from all the movement and was leaking into the compartment and then outside.  So we’ve been treating the roadway for a couple hundred miles or so.  Just one of those wonky things that goes wrong on a trip like this.

Our campsite in Loop E of the State Park Campground is right next to the dune separating the campground from the ocean. From here we can hear the roar of the surf and feel the breeze off the ocean.  Should be a great night for sleeping.

Walking through the campground, we could see and hear the wild horses grazing by some of the campsites.  We’ve also seen a deer and Deb almost tripped over a Black Snake.

If the weather holds, we may stay for another night.  The intercostal waterway is supposed to be great for kayaking.

Selfie by the Atlantic Ocean