Celebratory Road Trip down to Delaware
Last weekend plus 3 more days, we went on road trip down to Delaware. When my wife first brought up the idea for this trip, my first reaction, as well as likely most of you, was "What's in Delaware?" Turns out, quite a bit of things we like to do. The magic words that got me interested were beer, Oktoberfest, and fun drives.
The trip started off on a great note with a lunch stop at
Iron Hill Brewery in Wilmington, DE. They have a brewery downstairs and rooftop sitting. I ordered a flight of their beers which comes in glasses a bit larger than regular shot glass. My favorite was Vienna Red Lager. This was paired nicely with guacamole and tortilla chips followed by grilled chicken sandwich. The weather was great and the view overlooked the riverfront.
Next stop was the Nemours Mansion by duPont. We got a tour of the gardens as well as the tour of the house. It was interesting to find out about that some of his story seems to be out of the book "
The Great Gatsby
," where a guy builds a huge mansion with whole lot of expansive decor to make a woman fall in love with him. And just like in the book, it does not really work out.
After we checked into the hotel, our next stop for the first day was the
Delaware Saengerbund Oktoberfest. While this was a fun event, unfortunately, it was raining quite a bit that evening. All the folks were crowded into the tent with all the food and booze. It was quite a spectacle with people soaked from rain or spilled beer, beer cup stacking contest, all kind of costumes and entertainment.
The following day we hit the farmers' market to gather up ingredients for our scenic valley picnic. We took a ride on the doodlebug train via the
Wilmington & Western railroad. It was a fun, relaxing, and scenic ride along the river and some very nice properties.
To wash down our lunch, we stopped in at
Pizzadili Winery. Nope, they don't serve pizza there. Though they did have vineyards and good wines to sample.
After the winery, we headed to our final destination of the road trip, Rehoboth Beach. There we stopped in at restaurant "
Salt Air" for dinner. They have a great menu of seafood and other local ingredients. We had Corn and Crab Chowder, which was delicious, followed by Bacon Wrapped Baby Potatoes, mmm bacon. And for entree we had Eastern Shore Crab Cakes.
And to finish off a day of great tasting, we stopped in at The Ice Cream Store, a place with hundreds of different ice cream flavors. If you are ever in the Rehoboth, come by this place and try some of their flavors. If nothing else, they have some interesting combinations and names. That evening we also got in a few games of skeeball, points donated to a couple of kids that need to get them over 4,000.
And what trip to Rehoboth be complete without visiting the staples. The following day we had dinner at
DogFish Head Restaurant and Brewery, food was good and so was the brew. My favorite is the Midas Touch. For lunch next day we had fries from famous Thrashers, which got shared with some quick grabbing seagulls.
The same day we headed out to Nassau Winery and finished the day with dinner at Oyster House to celebrate our 3rd year anniversary.
To break up the trip, we also made some interesting and scenic stops. First was in a very tiny town of Odessa, population 364. Then Heritage Winery for some more sampling of wine and grapes, and a walk through campus of the university and dessert at a local Turkish restaurant in Princeton.
This trip was our vacation/celebration/baby moon. That's right! We are expecting. So don't be surprised when some of the travel gadgets start to more and more lean towards
kids travel gadgets :)
Sound-off: Do you have a trip planned this fall? Let us know below
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