Delmarvelous | Outside Online

You Are Here:

Home >> Travel >> Delmarvelous

Today's Question
Where should I camp in Switzerland with my kids? answer

What's the best volcano to hike up in North America? answer

How can I plan a trip around riding the biggest, fastest roller coasters? answer

Online Favorites

Special Issues

Photo Galleries

Outside Magazine's 2002 Family Travel Guide

Page:

Fun Ahead: Return of the Great American Road Trip
Delmarvelous
Sampling sea and shore along Chesapeake Bay

By Todd Scantlebury


	Can you see the light?: sunset on the Chesapeake in Maryland (Bud Freund/Index Stock)

I LIKE EARLY AMERICAN HISTORY as much as the next fellow, but there are only so many bewigged reenactors, herb-garden tours, and chewings of authentic 17th-century cinnamon sticks one can endure. After touring colonial Williamsburg, my family's antidote was a drive up the Chesapeake Bay's Eastern Shore. On a 280-mile circuit zigzagging up the Delmarva Peninsula from Norfolk, Virginia, to Annapolis, Maryland, we traded our tour badges for cypress swamps, sand dunes, and a passel of waterborne activities.

Day 1 >>Norfolk, Virginia-Cape Charles
We leave behind the steel cranes and industrial grime of Norfolk and take the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel to reach Delmarva's slender southern end. Each of us has a task: In the way-back of the van, my daughter Sawyer, 11, wears headphones and reads colonial-themed Johnny Tremain; her sister, Riley, 8, sits in the middle seat, coloring a historical dress book in incongruous Day-Glo orange; my wife, Diane, rides shotgun, brow furrowed as she twists the map to line up with the road. I drive.

A mile onto the peninsula, at the start of our push north on U.S. 13, we stop at Sting Ray's for the best crab cakes on the Chesapeake—golden, delicate patties that flake and steam at the push of a fork. Just another mile gets us to the Sunset Beach Resort, where we slip into double kayaks for an easy flatwater paddle past white-sand beaches and salt marshes of swaying spartina grass. Salt air and open water are delicious in contrast to the van, and I expound nonstop to my paddling mate, Riley, who falls asleep. It must be time to set the tent amid the shoreside pines of Kiptopeke State Park.

Day 2 >> Cape Charles-Chincoteague
We rent an outboard at teeny-tiny Wachapreague, on the Atlantic side of the peninsula. We motor out the channel to the ocean and drift past the weathered clapboard of the eerie abandoned Coast Guard station on Cedar Island. Using a chart and timing the tidal current are easy, but the expedition's real goal, finding clams along the shore by spotting their telltale spitting, evades us. We nearly give up when Sawyer, who has been shuffling her feet ankle-deep near the low-tide line, stumbles upon a clam mother lode.

We motor back to port and drive north to a family-run campground on pony-famous Chincoteague Island. Garlic and butter—coupled with our clam stash—provide the right ending to our day at the beach.

Page: