Day 158 - Cape May Ferry and Lewes, DE

The weather was beautiful in Atlantic City, we didn't realise just how lucky we had been until we woke up this morning. It was grey outside, the rain was just starting to come down and it was cold enough for us to pack away our shorts and dig out the jeans and jumpers again. 

We met a fellow English lady vacationing in Atlantic City who now lived in New Jersey and often did the drive to and from Atlantic City to get in some adult time without the kids. When we told her we were headed to Washington DC, she told us not to take the Interstate which is notoriously busy and slow and instead take the Cape May Ferry over to Delaware and take the back roads for as long as we go until we were close enough to the city to jump on the interstate again. 

We decided to follow her advice so we packed up, checked out and headed in Fin down the Garden State Parkway until we reached Mile Marker 0 and Cape May. 

We arrived a little earlier for the ferry so we decided to check out the town of Cape May and the beach. Cape May is a seaside resort located right at the top of the tip of southern New Jersey’s Cape May Peninsula. Opposite the beach were huge grand Victorian houses, many of them converted into B&Bs or museums but a number looked like they were still privately owned and lived in. When we walked onto the beach itself, we realised that had we arrived a couple of months earlier, we would probably be walking onto a packed beach. The sand was soft, clean and seemed to go on for miles, there were really good facilities with toilets, showers, and picnic areas. Whilst we didn't get to see the beach in its full glory on a sunny day, we were the only people there and it was nice to have it all to ourselves. 

We headed back on the road and towards the ferry terminal located just 10 minutes away. We didn't have a reservation but as it was the off season, we were able to just show up, pay for a ticket and jump on the next ferry.  

The trip took around 80 minutes and cost $28 for a one way ticket. We had been told that it was a great ferry route for spotting whales and dolphins so despite the slight drizzle, we sat out on the deck for the entire journey looking out to see trying to spot a fin in the water. We didn't see a dolphin or a whale but we did have fun watching the birds going crazy behind the boat and then flying with us all the way over to Lewes in Delaware.

We arrived in Delaware, the second smallest state in the USA! Once off the ferry, we decided to drive around Lewes, this was our only planned stop in Delaware so we needed to make the most of the time we had. 

Compared to New Jersey, it felt like we had gone back in time. Lewes doesn't have the huge houses, the glamour or the money that we felt was in New Jersey but it did feel more like a historic local town rather than a tourist hotspot. 

We didn't want to arrive into Washington DC in the dark so we decided it was time to make some tracks. The advice we were given about taking the Cape May ferry was really good, the drive from Lewes to Washington DC was mainly down quiet country roads. We had a lot of interesting farms and villages to look at along the way making the drive seem a lot shorter than it actually was. 

We eventually headed over the border into Maryland where we had no choice but to pick up the Interstate into Washington DC and our destination for the next two nights.