Made my third trip to Lewes this year, roughly 100 miles each way, mostly highway or with minimal traffic lights. First two times brought me to Cape Henlopen State Park, fishing pier in the spring, beach in the early summer. The Park really skirts the town, a place I've not visited in many years. Fishing pier has more charm than catch. Beach has a pleasant strip of sand, refreshing waves, and adequate changing facilities.
People live in the town. There is commerce. There is medical care. There are schools, though the high school is really on the route to the park. People own houses and stay in them indefinitely. And, people come from other places to settle there.
A cousin who had relocated to Florida's Gulf Coast quite a while ago has been renting a house there for the past several summers so we visited. The GPS directed me a little differently than it would to the Park, taking me through some of the newer residential communities which range from not yet completed townhouse complexes to tony gated communities whose spacious properties and elegant structures could be seen by glancing either side of the main road while driving. Then we came to the water, a marina with pleasure craft to the left and the edge of the commercial district to the right. A dead end forced us to turn onto a draw bridge to reach our cousin's house just two blocks away. Lewes has depended on this water since its founding at the end of the 17th century. Today people stay at small hotels there to access its beach, which sits on a bay, making its waves less ferocious than those of the Atlantic at the Park. In most months, fishing charters take amateur anglers out to sea for a half day. I passed a place offering whale watching excursions, not realizing that the whales visited periodically. And the draw bridge lets the watercraft exit the marina to the bay or beyond for the owner's pleasure.
Yet it's not really a resort town in the sense of dependent on seasonal activity. As I later walked the main commercial street, the businesses seemed year-round. A bank built solidly of brick, the town's post office. A few places to eat, some trendy others less, but no fast food chains. A boutique or two that probably depend on the busy summer season. While I think of people from DC with generous federal pensions retiring there, the people in town were largely young adults. Unlikely most of them could purchase any but the smallest boats in the marina, though I did not see any particularly ostentatious yachts there. We stopped for lunch at one of the trendy places, late breakfast for me as I usually function without lunch. Priced a little higher than similar places at home, though not outrageous. The restaurants depend on return visits more than special occasion splurges.
Despite the seasonal element, the town impressed me more as a place people would want to live if they could get a secure well-paying job with an easy commute. The school and medical facilities would offer that employment. And the real beach towns with property managers and endless retail are a short drive. Poultry industry a longer drive, but probably a source of executive salaries of big industry. No litter at all. Not that many churches, certainly not the pervasiveness that dominates other small towns of Lewes' size and once rural location. Also, I saw very few people of color, though I don't really know what the diversity of the town actually is. From looking at the town, it's hard to assess the economic activity that sustains it. Yet there are visible hints of how people who live there become part of the local fabric. I saw a Little League field with its fence of measured distances. There were small hotels, realty offices, a small factory that apparently produces bulk ice for commercial purposes. Supermarkets and big box retailers require a car, though not a very long drive to the region's main thoroughfare that essentially runs the entire north-south direction of the state. Fast food needs a drive to the main highway. And people who like upscale name-brand niceties can get them discounted from the Beach Outlets a short drive away, places that do a brisk trade on the rainy summer afternoons that preclude lounging on the sand. So people who can get a job, buy a pleasant house, and don't really care how much planning is needed to get to an airport quite a schlep away can live quite well there. Despite its population surge in beach season, it seemed primarily a place that people want to make their permanent homes.
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