Flea Marketing

Saturday, May 1, 2021 Flea Marketing We had a good time today--this entire vacation is both nothing out of the ordinary per se, but very relaxing in so many ways. This morning, we went out in the Jeep with two goals. First was to “case the joint” for a place to get propane--we’d been given two names of places, and wanted to see if they really were going to work out tomorrow. The second was to find “Antique Alley”, supposedly a largish antique store. I am still on my hunt to check out the Roseville situation these days. We did the propane first. It turned out that there was quite a bit of traffic along the main route of US 13 through Laurel, Delaware, which is where we were, but to get there, we went through country roads with no one else much around. The first place we checked did not have propane, but the other place was across the street. We drove in, and figured out how to get the RV into position at the propane tank, and where we could hook up after that. Mission accomplished! Then, after a stop at Dunkin Donuts, where I found out I had not just earned my free coffee, but they were giving me another one as a birthday gift, we continued through the construction traffic and found, not the antique store we were expecting, but a giant building with what looked like a flea market behind it. The place was hopping--and reminded us of Englishtown Market back at home. We used to love that place when we were teenagers--the kind of place you’d always find SOMETHING you need. Joe and I parked the Jeep on the grass verge (no place else to park) and immediately started “finding things.” He went one way, toward a table with plants, flowers, vegetables, fruits, chickens (live!) and stuff like that. I stopped at a table with jigsaw puzzles. I made a big $2.00 purchase of a puzzle “mat” (to roll up with a partially done puzzle inside it--I always wondered if they would work, and this one looked unused) and found him eyeing the tomato plants. We continued outside, but our only treasure was a $1 treat for Juniper. Inside, the downstairs seemed like a shuk-- little shops of clothing, toiletries, a hairdresser, all kinds of odds and ends (including rabbits for sale.) The antiques, it turned out, were on the second floor, and it was indeed a large area. However, we did not find a single thing of interest up there. Back outside around the other direction from the flea market was another smaller antique store, and they did have a couple of pieces of Roseville... not of much interest, though. Nevertheless, we really enjoyed just taking in the local color and wandering. By then we realized it was already 1:30 in the afternoon. So we went back to the campground at the state park, had some lunch, and then spent the rest of the day relaxing and reading. There were a lot of people canoeing and kayaking on the lake, but it all just seemed like too much trouble somehow. I did take walk with Cassie back to the lake, though, and took some photos to post here. When dusk arrived, I packed up the chairs, knowing we’d be leaving the next morning, we had some dinner, and that was our lazy day. I did sneak in a couple of pages of Daf Yomi, however, so it had that Shabbat feel. All good.

Transition to Trap Pond State Park

Friday, April 30, 2021 Today’s blog is going to be short-- because there’s not much to tell about! We got started fairly early, but not rushing, to slowly tidy up the RV so we could leave Cape Henlopen. I wrote a blog for the previous day, and organized some photos, and discovered that my own phone would allow me to access the internet. So I uploaded a blog and some photos. Then we disconnected from the water and electric, and pulled out of the campsite at about 11 a.m. It took another hour for us to get through the dump station--there are three very well arranged dumps, but there was a line waiting to use them--and then hook up the Jeep. Luckily, I had noticed the large parking lot in the park near the beach access yesterday, so we drove down to that end of the park and used the nearly empty lot to get ourselves together (literally!) Then we headed out. We still were hoping to find a propane place, and the park attendant had suggested a place in Rehoboth, about 5-6 miles from the park. So we drove that way. The road (Route 1) was 3 lanes on each side, and packed with stores, shopping centers (no fewer than 3 sections for Tanger Outlets), at least one midway-style area with rides and games, restaurants, etc. Clearly this is a town built around the beach and the summer visitors. Unfortunately, the propane was on the wrong side of the road and looked inaccessible when we finally saw it. We decided once again to just skip the whole thing for now. We ended up making a random left turn to try to go back the way we came, and got lucky--we turned left at a light which led right into a big parking lot adjacent to two buildings. One was an auction house (nothing happening there) and one was a huge thrift shop run by the local parish. When I saw how large it was, Joey agreed to stop so I could check it out. Everyone wore masks (this seems to be true everywhere we go, luckily) and I took as short a time as possible. In the end, I decided against picking up anything for Junie, and just got myself one jigsaw puzzle. When I went back outside to the RV, Joe pointed out that it was already after 1pm, so we decided to eat lunch before leaving. And then we hit the road, went back through the traffic for a couple of miles, and then turned south. We drove for about an hour and arrived at Trap Pond State Park, where we are spending two nights, until Sunday. The campground is really pretty--much higher trees than at Henlopen, and more space between RV sites (although not as large sites as we had in NJ a few nights ago.) The “pond”, really a nice small lake, is at the end of the camping loops, and each loop has a boat dock. We sat on a bench and enjoyed the lake for a while after we first got here, then set up the chairs back at our site. It got a LOT cooler during the afternoon, and it just figures that in a place that would be ideal to take out our kayak, the weather will only be in the 60‘s, which is kind of cold for us to be out getting wet, I think. (We are wimpy like that!) So we’ll have to find something else to do here... probably hanging out and reading and napping. The park has a free bicycle “Rental” shack, and maybe I’ll push myself and take a bike ride-- I’ve been wanting to do that for a while. The park is so flat that we didn’t need a single block to even out the RV, so it’s probably a nice flat bike ride as well. I was able to use my hot spot here, so uploaded another blog... maybe I can catch up with that this weekend too!