Delaware & Maryland

I just spent an hour reading an editing my last entry. At this rate this blog is going to take forever. I need to just get on with it.

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes…

Ferry to Delaware

The next morning we caught the Cape May ferry that transports passengers between New Jersey and Delaware. Delaware had been a national focus over the last month as Christine O'Donnell, a representative of the newly organised Republican right and a Senate candidate for this state, had been dominating much of the mass media news narrative in the run up to the mid-term elections.

Some opinion…

The Tea party, as it is being called, derive their name from a feeling that they are being “Taxed Enough Already”, a reference in itself to the Boston Tea Party in 1773, where America quite reasonably accelerated its campaign of descent against the unfair taxation that they had endured without democratic representation in the British Parliament. To an outsider, their rhetoric appears to be low on rational fact and high on a provocative fundamentalist interpretation of the American constitution. It is highly critical of the economic stimulus package that was deployed by both Republicans and Democrats, and it appears to be using this criticism to derail the policies of a president who remains deeply unpopular within communities that do not see him as a palatable figurehead for America. For me, the Boston Tea Party reference is telling. It illustrates that this movement are comparing their small government ambitions with the original struggle, first for representation, and then for independence. This comparison simply does not stand up. Big government and high taxation do not imprison the American people who already pay one of the lowest levels of tax in the post-industrial world. In my mind, it is low levels of investment in coherent and efficient health and education policy that inhibits the potential of people in any country, not taxation in itself.

Anyway…

Our stay in Delaware was brief, as we immediately headed south toward the border with Maryland, one of the wealthiest states in America. Here our first destination was Ocean City, land once owned and originally developed by an Englishman, Mr Thomas Fenwick. Now Ocean City, which sits on a long thin island, is a popular tourist destination that has maintained a traditional perspective of what a Beach resort should be. It has a long boardwalk, countless low lying theme parks and an endless sprawl of hotels and cheap restaurants in which holiday makers can relax and gorge themselves to their hearts content.

Ocean City is also one of the few places in America that I have been to before. I lived here for a summer after I graduated from university and worked, first in a maddening theme park called Trimpers from which I had to escape (long story), and then in an insipid sweet shop called Candy Kitchen where I ate my body weight in fudge and taffy. My experience back then was one that has influenced the path of my life. It was the first time that I had travelled to a foreign country alone, and it was the beginning of my life as a fully independent adult. For this reason I had always remembered the place fondly. However, this time around both my mind and my heart sit in a very different place, so beyond a couple of hours spent nostalgically walking the down a heavily commercialised seafront, the appeal of this place was limited. It was time to move on.

Trimpers

Candy Kitchen

Our next stop was a campsite on the beach on the far more beautiful Assateague Island, which sits right next to Ocean City, but which requires a detour via the mainland in order to enter. Here wild ponies roamed free between impressive sand dunes that sat facing a long, clean and empty beach. Quite simply this was a beautiful place to sit by an open campfire, watch the stars and absorb the first few beautiful rays of early morning sunshine.

The next day we headed to Baltimore through the second day of rain of our whole trip. En route we crossed the impressive Francis Scott Key Bridge, which appeared to hover above the mist created by the deluge. This visit to a city most recently associated with the rather brilliant depiction of its drug problem in ‘The Wire’, will mostly be remembered for two reasons; it’s immensely attractive inner-city architecture and the fact that it was within this city that we received our first (very minor) driving violation. I guess that there has to be a first for everything.

Assateague Island

© All Images By Paul