at the beach house

It is mid-September and we moved into our house just over a week ago. It is really nice to have amenities such as indoor bathrooms and clean floors. We got an internet hookup so we can keep in touch a lot better now.

The house is about two blocks from the beach. We can get there and back in about fifteen minutes. We are on the Delaware Bay, not as dramatic as the Atlantic Ocean but the State Park is about 5 minutes away if we want more wave action.

Since Labor Day, we have seen the town slow down a bit but there is still plenty of activity. The owner of the house came by today to bring the garage door opener. He said that when they bought the house in the early 90s, Lewes was very sleepy and relaxed compared to today. Then someone wrote an article in a national magazine about the quaint little vacation spot, and everything changed. If only we could find the little town that hasn't been the subject of a magazine article or Travel Channel report. The mythical spot where house prices are still cheap. Definitely doesn't exist here though.

Oliver has two molars! The top ones. Also he can put the heads on little Lego characters. David and Arthur have been building like crazy with legos since we moved in. Arthur used an Amazon birthday gift certificate to buy some kind of robotic lego gadget. Every morning he wakes up and asks how many days until the "repeat robot" comes in the mail. It's supposed to be here by Friday.

Yesterday we went on a historical tour of Lewes: all the museums were free. There were a bunch of activities (interesting talks, musicians, etc.) but we arrived late so we just walked through the museums. The most interesting was the Ryves-Holt House. It is the oldest house in Delaware (ca. 1665). It is amazing to think the house was already over 100 years old when the American Revolution took place. Dendochronology - examine the rings in a piece of wood - was used to determine the age of the house.

We just recently watched a DVD on Irish history and a scientist in this video was studying pieces of wood found in peat bogs. Between that and scientific finds in other countries, they are pretty sure that there was a worldwide climate disaster in about AD 1200. Fascinating.

But back to Lewes. The Ryves-Holt house was originally built as a dwelling, but used as a tavern until it was shut down for card playing. It was fascinating to see so much of the house, when a lot of historic buildings are roped off like a Disney theme park. You can't touch anything and everything is freshly painted or restored. Down in the basement you can really see the structure of the house. There is a wall of sun-dried bricks that are basically turning to dust. I hope someone figures out what can be done to preserve them. The exposed wood in the ceiling (floor of ground floor) have bark on them. The docent said that although it gets damp here in winter, the basement of this house doesn't have a problem. I thought that probably the builder just picked the best spot. Other houses, built in damp and unstable places, gradually fell into structural disrepair. This was the one that was still good after 350 years.

There were also artist studio tours going on and the funeral of a former (and apparently, much loved) mayor of Lewes. Cops were stationed on every corner in anticipation of the traffic they would have to direct once the procession began. Fortunately for us, we were leaving just before the parade of cars started, and we were going the other way, over the bridge.

We also stopped in at the Swaanendal (sp?) Museum, which was interesting and had lots of relics from the shipwreck (more on that later) but we didn't stay as the kids were starting to fray at the edges. It's free, though, being a state museum, so we'll be back. The shipwreck was something they found just off the shore when they were dredging the bay. Unwittingly, the workers continued to dredge, though, so they crunched up a lot of it. Lots of booty was found washed up on the shore, and we talked to a woman (who was making here way along the beach early one morning with a metal detector) who found a Dutch belt buckle from the 1700s. Now they are asking everyone who finds treasure to hand it in so it can go into a museum, but it would still be exciting to unearth something.