RV Trip 12 has begun and will cover the Southeastern area of the US. We left later this year as we’re watching our day count in the US and we also wanted to go to Toronto to visit family and some friends (we didn’t have time to see everyone we wanted to see) before heading south. Due to WordPress space restrictions, I am changing the compression ratio for my photos so let us know in the comments below if you can tell any difference from prior blogs. We’re hoping the change will have minimal impact on the appearance and save us from needing to upgrade to a business version of the tool. Lastly reminder that if you click on the first image in each block it will take you to slide view mode and you should see the photo captions below each image.

We dodged some snowfall on our way to Markham to stay with our good friends Danny and Janice. That evening Danny and I enjoyed a dram of King George V whisky priced at the LCBO at $950/bottle, wow was it good! Danny’s nephew gave the bottle to Danny when he moved to Singapore. The girls had a Cream Royale brandy liqueur from our trip to Texas last year.

The next day we went out for a great Thai lunch with our niece from Calgary, Thea (she’s attending Humber College) and her boyfriend Malik who was in from Calgary for the weekend (first time we met him). The food was very good at the restaurant, but they were inexperienced at making cocktails, they came out 1 at a time and more like slushies😉 After lunch we went for a great walk along the Mimico section of the Waterfront Trail.

On Sunday Janice took us to Bob Hunter Memorial Park (part of the Rouge National Urban Park) so we could go for a walk with Marg and Mike and then we went out for Brunch. That evening we had a great smorgasbord dinner with the kids and partners. On Monday we had a FASDRR lunch get together at Moxie’s and it was great to catch up with some of our life time friends.

On Tuesday November 28^th we started our journey south and it was a bit tricky because Buffalo had over 1’ of snow the night before and there were streamers coming off Lake Erie. We went from Markham down to Fort Erie where we had an easy crossing into the US, no line up. Although for some strange reason the customs agent asked us how long we had been RV’ing and if we were going to Mexico and an open ended question of what we were bringing. I guess my answers were ok😉 From there we headed straight east to try to avoid the snow streamers. We were glad that the roads were just wet and not snow covered. Our faithful weather watcher Danny was texting with Sharon to say how far east we needed to go before heading south and in turn what time we had to get through one area before a heavy streamer came in. We just clipped the start of that streamer. That night we stayed in a budget hotel in New Columbia since the RV was still winterized. The next day Sharon decided we should stop in Hershey Pennsylvania to go to Hershey’s Chocolate World. The info said they had a free tour, but it turned out to be a carnival type ride through an area that taught you how they made their chocolate, a little hokey but fun and you got a free small chocolate bar at the end. Milton Hershey started the chocolate factory in 1903 in Hershey Pennsylvania (he built the whole town around it) because he could get lots of his key ingredient which was fresh milk from the local dairy farms. Here are a few other fun facts:

• In 1908 the first Hershey chocolate bar with almonds was made
• Hershey Kisses were hand wrapped until 1921
• 1925-39 Mr. Goodbar and Hershey’s Syrup are created
• 1941-45 Hershey made 3 billion ration bars for the Word War II troops, Milton Hershey died in 1945
• In 1963 Hershey acquires H.B. Reese Company who makes Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
• In 1973 Hershey’s Chocolate World opens
• 1977 Hershey’s acquires Y&S Candies who make Twizzlers, enough Twizzlers are made each year to stretch to the moon & back 5 times!
• 2000 they acquire Ice Breakers and Breath Savers Brands
• Cacao is grown in tropical rainforests 13% from the Americas, 69% from West Africa, 18% from SE Asia
• It takes 270 Cacao beans to make 1 lb of chocolate

After the carnival ride, we bought a big pretzel for lunch (came with three dips, one being chocolate ganache) and I had a really good Chocolate Porter while Sharon had a signature chocolate cocktail. Then of course we had to shop in the store, and we bought about $60 worth of chocolate treats😉

We had been monitoring the nighttime temperatures and made the decision we would head on a Southeasterly direction to the Atlantic Ocean since we would be able to unwinterize sooner. It was another long drive day, but we made it to Cape Henlopen SP in Delaware, a new state for us to visit. We initially checked in for 1 night but after researching the park further we added an extra 2 nights. This is where we learned about the term Delmarva, which stands for Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, so we decided to spend a couple of weeks exploring this area. It’s the land mass that sticks out between Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.

Our first day in Cape Henlopen was sunny so we did a 12 km hike to see the Observation Tower, the outside exhibits at Fort Miles and then walked around the Point on the beach. There are 11 concrete observation towers along the Delaware coast, built from 1939 to 1942 so they could watch out for any German ship attacks and in turn inform the gun posts in the Batteries along the coast. They were built to last 20 years but are still standing! We climbed to the top of the main tower so we could get a view of the park and coastline. Fort Miles consisted of the concrete buildings that were used to house the soldiers that manned the guns in Battery 519 and later were used as recreation area prior to the military donating the land for the State Park. On the grounds they have examples of all the different sized guns that were originally used at the Battery, the most impressive being the 16” gun that could actually fire up to 25 miles out to sea. The Fort also maintained a minefield that stretched between Cape Henlopen and Cape May to protect Delaware Bay. We also saw an example of a Spotter house that was used by volunteers to help triangulate sightings to any enemy ships so they could aim the guns properly.

In our walk around the point, we saw lots of Horseshoe Crab shells. They were either shells the crab shed (very thin) or dead crabs that came in with the tide (birds usually having a meal in them). This area is a nursery for marine life but unfortunately, they don’t all survive. We saw the very interesting Whelk egg casings (a type of seashell) and a group of mermaid purse casings (baby skates). On the bay side of the point there was a faint sundog around the sun and some military helicopters flying by.

We found out they had a tour of the inside of Battery 519 the following day so we signed up for the $5-1 hour tour. We were a bit early arriving which gave us a chance to watch an old training video to teach the soldiers how to fire the 16” gun. It took 25 men with varying jobs to fire the guns. On the tour the volunteer guide explained about the depth of the concrete walls used to protect from enemy ship fire and also about the steel enclosed channel in the walls to hold the electrical cabling. The battery also had generator backup power so they could continue to operate if the power lines were taken out. They had a demonstration area of the plotting room where they used slide rules to calculate how to hit the ships that were spotted. The room would have been a half mile away in its own bunker. Then he showed us the powder room and the shell room where they had a hoist and rail system to move the shells to where the gun was located. In the gun room they showed us where they loaded the shells into the gun and they had a simulated firing button that Sharon got to press to let you hear 1/10^th of the sound volume the guys had to listen to when a gun was fired. Of course, the 25 men had no ear protection so the majority of them completely damaged their hearing. The tour was excellent, and we were glad we had watched the video first. After the tour we went through the museum and there they had some examples of the mines that had been used to protect Delaware Bay.

After the tour we did the Pinelands Nature trail to the Nature Centre and looked around at the exhibits. We also spoke to the park ranger showing her the photos we had taken around the point. We returned to the RV just before dark which is around 4:45 at this time of year which makes your days short and your nights long.

For our last day at Cape Henlopen SP we did a 30 km bike ride to the Biden Centre (being restored), Battery Smith (had to see that one), Herring Point, along the Gordons Pond trail to whiskey beach, then on the bike trail through Rehoboth Beach and returned through the Wolfe Neck area of the state park along the Junction and Breakwater trail which was an old rail line. There had been a marathon race that morning and we did see several stragglers, especially in Rehoboth Beach. The bike trails were a combination of gravel, composite boardwalks, and paved bike lanes. Once in Lewes we saw the location of the old swing bridge and then saw where they had relocated it to as a historic artifact. Once back in the SP we rode by one more of the Observation towers.

As we were leaving Cape Henlopen SP our campground neighbour told us about a couple of places to visit; Dogfish Head Brewery was too big of a back track so I had to settle for a mixed case of their beer, and about Old World Breads which we did go visit. The bakery was incredibly small but they had a constant line up of people and lots of interesting products to choose from including some delicious olive bread and hearty ancient grain bread. After our bakery stop, we decided to stop at the Big Fish Grill for lunch, we shared some baked oysters and then I had the grouper sandwich and Sharon had the crab cake sandwich, and we followed that with a mega piece of peanut butter pie😉 Right next door they had a seafood market so we got some steamed gulf shrimp to take away for dinner later.

Cape Henlopen SP was a phenomenal place to visit with lots of history and activities to do. Our next blog will carry on within Delmarva to Maryland and Virginia.