How do you write a travel blog during a global pandemic? Is it sacrilegious? Diminished solidarity, eroded willpower? Even though we took as many COVID precautions as possible, we did leave our home and go somewhere new. At this point, now that I’m both vaccinated and going to work in person, we judged that this very limited vacation was both safe and necessary. But it still felt strange to be enjoying a vacation during this time of isolation.
My internal critic mutters that I have switched camps, turned traitor and become part of the problem. Our rental cottage’s guest book had 10 entries since last spring. Ten trips recorded during the pandemic, yet not a single mention of coronavirus. One visitor even listed all the restaurants they’d enjoyed visiting, presumably for indoor dining, which we also witnessed a fair amount of this week. I made sure to write that we’d enjoyed “a relaxing pandemic getaway.” It’s chilling to think that history might forget how much the pandemic impacted our lives. How could those 10 people neglect to mention it at all?
I do feel the need to spell out some COVID disclaimers, because it’s very important to me that we all continue doing our part to end this public health crisis. This was not a normal trip: We did not let our guard down or change behavior from what we’ve been doing at home. We were two households, but most of us were fully vaccinated, and the two unvaccinated people have been fully isolating. A rental cottage allowed us to avoid interacting with anyone. All of us have been carefully masking, distancing, and avoiding possible exposures. Our activities were all outdoors except for picking up takeout; we wore masks even when far apart from people out in public. We also didn’t travel far — the CDC says to continue avoiding flying, even if you’re vaccinated. I’m desperate to see my family, but that will have to wait until it’s safe to travel by plane.
It’s tiring, tedious and depressing to be dwelling on the pandemic. This was supposed to be a post filled with the joy of exploration, but the pandemic remains inescapable. This five-day trip was mostly a respite from pandemic pressures. It helped me to look forward and onward to a travel-filled future. It was the beginning of release from this yearlong imprisonment.
Dewey Beach, Delaware, is about 2-3 hours east of our home in Northern Virginia (depending on traffic). My mental map of the East Coast is still fairly fuzzy, but solidifying all the time. Turns out that even though it’s several states away, you could consider this “our” ocean beach, because it’s pretty much straight east. You can go a little further south to Maryland (Ocean City) on the same peninsula, or you can head southeast to Virginia Beach, the Outer Banks, and more of the Carolinas. Southeast I’ve done, but this was my first time going east. Driving across the Chesapeake Bay and the Delmarva Peninsula to reach the Atlantic Ocean, we finally made it to true beach vibes: saltwater, sand dunes, and huge horizons. Ahhhhhhh… Everything feels better from the beach.
The cottage we rented was too small to be called a house. It fit the five of us in very cozy quarters, especially since the late March weather was still a bit too cold for use of the screened-in porch. We were so happy to be around each other after months and months of isolation that the cramped quarters were in themselves a welcome change. Plus, we had plenty of outdoor space with the beach just steps away!
Even the New Jersey relatives who met us there had few preconceived notions of Delaware. I was surprised, figuring that it was just my West Coast background that caused me to draw a blank, but the East Coasters had never been there, either. The drive to the beach was picturesquely rural, with two-lane roads cutting through flat farmland. Yet Rehoboth Beach is a small city, with a boardwalk, tons of restaurants and shops, and lots of residential areas. Dewey Beach is like the smaller sibling hanging next to Rehoboth - it has just one main road, along which most of the shops and restaurants were still closed for the season. Northern Delaware is apparently the most urban (Wilmington being like a suburb of Philadelphia), but we also drove through Dover, which is such a small state capital that it doesn’t even have an interstate!
A bit of spring and history in Dover.
It’s been a hard year and a stressful few weeks of in-person school. It was therapeutic to breathe in the windy, salty air and sink my feet in the sand. Equally meaningful was connecting with family, gasping in fits of laughter and catching up on life’s happenings both big and small. We were all free to go at our own pace, which in my case meant at least one nap per day. Molly Dog was having some elbow pain, but was happy to sniff the ocean smells, so we took a lot of short walks along the beach. When I sat down in a beach chair, she’d stay standing to take it all in. Several times I saw she’d accumulated a sandy paste on her slightly wet nose.
Molly's first time at the ocean!
We went for a bike ride, my first in several years! I was glad I’d worn a helmet when I wiped out changing gears uphill. The trail was for bicycles and pedestrians only in a coastal state park. I felt free, powering myself on packed gravel in the woods and pedaling across raised boardwalks through the marshes.
Sights around Dewey Beach, Rehoboth Beach, and Cape Henlopen State Park.
We got takeout from local restaurants, including crab cakes and fish and chips. I wonder how it will feel to someday return to eating inside restaurants? We listened to the rain dripping loudly on the roof. We did a puzzle with oddly-shaped pieces, a scene of a truck in front of an old-timey rustic store. I read, and wrote, and even took my journal down to the beach, trying to capture the peace I feel there. We stargazed and moon-gazed. Best of all, we caught a rosy sunrise to finish off the trip.
Dewey Beach was the perfect combination of beach for me and bicycling for Marc, so we are confident we’ll return. It’s wonderful to have found “our” closest beach, which could even be a doable day trip! Equally exciting is the hope of all kinds of future travels, visiting with long-lost loved ones and safely exploring the world again. Don’t give up; the pandemic will end.
It has indeed been a long, cold, lonely winter... but yes, here comes the sun.