You remember the old song, “What did Della wear boys? What did Della wear? She wore a brand-new jersey, boys.” Well until November of 2020 that is about all I could have told you about Delaware. I had been through Delaware a couple of times on trips south when Harold and I were following alternative coastal routes, but I had never really stopped in Delaware and seen anything that I could say amounted to a trip to Delaware. Like so much in our lives, all of that changed in 2020 when the pandemic was in full swing and my life had been completely uprooted. While I can’t say for sure that Della wore a brand-new jersey, I do know that I wore a mask upon my first visit to the state, and not because I was planning a bank robbery.
When thinking about where I wanted to visit in Delaware, all I could come up with is famous beach towns like Rehoboth Beach and Bethany Beach. Quite frankly that didn’t appeal to me as an adventure or a place where I might acquire new and meaningful memories. Having explored the Atlantic coast from New England to Florida and having been instructed by my sage friend Norman, who at the time had homes in Delaware and Florida, that all the Atlantic beach towns were pretty much the same, I decided I had satisfied my Atlantic coastal visits with young adult summers at the Jersey shore and older, more mature adult winters at Edisto, leaving no desire to explore the Delaware coast. Then it came to me in the summer of 2020 as I started to think about the trip ahead for Wally and me as we returned to Edisto. We had driven up to Maine in late June as a mad dash, staying only in COVID certified motels for two nights and making the run in three very full driving days. Of course, the summer had been a great disappointment because the Canadian border never opened, and I was unable to get to Campobello. Instead, I took a ninety-day rental, July to October, at a dismal apartment in Bangor and sat out the summer in despair. I needed an adventure on my way home in the middle of the presidential election furor and the never-ending pandemic restrictions, and suddenly I decided. I would take an extra day driving south and stop in WIlmington, Delaware, not because of Joe Biden, but because of a place called Winterthur.
I remembered that for many years my father-in-law would order his Christmas presents for the women in the family from a catalogue published by a place called WInterthur, the ancestral home of the DuPont family located outside Wilmington. I knew Winterthur had a museum, a historic home, and some gardens. Once I started my research I realized that even at the end of October the gardens would be spectacular. Winterthur has manicured displayed gardens, but also acres of natural areas, meadows with cattle grazing, ponds, trails, and wonderful diversions of all sorts. https://www.winterthur.org/ I found a lovely chain hotel with good COVID policies on the river in downtown Wilmington and they accepted pets. Wally and I stayed there two nights and spent the intervening day touring the grounds. Winterthur was named after a Swiss village of the same name and the complex has a decidedly European/English country garden feel to it. The museum, which of course was closed due to health policy restrictions, was the inspiration for many of the pieces of jewelry and garden sculpture that my father-in-law purchased as Christmas presents. Below are some pictures of WInterthur in the autumn.
In addition to the gardens I also enjoyed my stay at the hotel along the river. There was a nice riverwalk path and many racing skulls on the Christina River. The area along the river, a tributary of the Delaware River, is gradually being developed into a walking path with shops, picnic areas, museums, and hotels. https://www.hiltonchristiana.com/things-to-do/wilmington-riverfront It is a work in progress but could develop into a really nice area reminiscent of the Charles RIver in Cambridge. (On both my trips I stayed at the Hyatt Place, same idea as the Hilton, but I thought the Hilton website was more informative. There are nice hotels in the area.) I also explored suburban Wilmington and found Joe Biden’s house in a very exclusive, wooded neighborhood outside the city and not too distant from WInterthur. I knew it must be Biden’s house not only because my GPS said it matched the address I had found online, but also because of the huge security presence surrounding the entrance and the officers signaling for me to keep moving. No time for a picture there.
Two years later, in May of 2022, I was delighted when my friend Sheri flew to Charleston to accompany me on my return trip to Bangor. It was my first road trip without my buddy Wally. I had lost him that spring at age thirteen and one-half. I always thought the old curmudgeon would live to be 17 or 18, as Scotties sometimes do. I gave Sheri some options about interesting sites we could visit on our way north, and she chose WInterthur. I therefore received the chance to see the gardens in the spring and as I expected they were quite different from the fall gardens. There was a great deal of spring color, including a blooming redbud which we made sure to photograph as evidenced by the picture at the top of the page.
It took me a long time to finally visit Delaware in a memorable way, but I would judge that it was worth the effort. I have come to believe that WInterthur is the most perfect garden in North America and I have visited many of them. From Butchart Gardens in Victoria, BC to Ottawa’s Tulip Gardens to Kingsbrae Gardens in St. Andrews, NB I have visited gardens in Canada and the States. Wherever I travel, the Pacific Northwest, the desert Southwest, Florida, or the Blue Ridge Mountains, gardens are always a highlight. As I spend my winters in South Carolina, southern gardens are well known to me. I have also visited Longwood Gardens, a more formal and structured garden located close to WInterthur, not to mention many New England gardens and British gardens as well. I must say that WInterthur remains one of my fondest memories of strolling through a garden because it is so natural and relaxed. It is worth the trip to Delaware.
Memories - A Second Chance at Happiness 