Cape May NJ, Delaware Beach State Park, and Assateague Island

September 09 - 13

We are just staying a couple of days here in South Jersey in the Cape May area.  This is an area that we could have stayed in longer; maybe next time.  We went to Wildwood to check out the boardwalk on Thursday morning the 10th and then we headed to Cape May for the remaining part of the day.  That was the totality of our adventure in the area, not much really.

Our site at the King Nummy Campground near Cape may NJ.

On Wednesday morning we headed over the 10 miles to the Atlantic coast and the tourist town of North Wildwood.  We just want to see the boardwalk and the town.  Well, 2 days past Labor day and the place was deserted!  And it was also during the morning, so it was sort of expected that there wouldn’t be any people there. 

Entering North Wildwood NJ

I was in Wildwood about 30 years ago.  I remember the town being a lot like Seaside Heights NJ.  Well, it is, sort of. Wildwood is much cleaner than Seaside and the boardwalk is longer.  However, they are also very similar as tourist seaside towns go.  We walked for about an hour on the boardwalk and then made a little hike out to the beach. That was enough for this time and we headed to lunch on the bay side.

Boardwalk pictures from Wildwood

One of the Amusement piers on the Boardwalk

Beach from the boardwalk in North Wildwood

Now, over to Cape May which is just a couple of miles.  Cape May is also a tourist town, however, with South Jersey charm.  We got there and parked downtown around 3 in the afternoon.  We really didn’t have any idea what we were going to do or see here.  What we did know is that we were going to eat dinner at the Ugly Mug restaurant.  The Ugly Mug was recommended by our friend Cindy where we stayed up north in Keyport NJ.  Good thing she recommended this place as it is mostly in the heart of the tourist shopping area of the town.  

We bummed around in the shopping area for a couple of hours and then took a trolley tour of the historic areas of Cape May.  The historic homes are probably what Cape May is most famous for.  The tour lasted a little over an hour with us getting a very good view of the homes here.  The tour showed us that there are many B&Bs and a lot of very nice restaurants outside of the tourist area of downtown.  If we were to come back we would definitely have a meal at one of the more upscale places in the historic district.

Patty doing some browsing in Cape May NJ

Ugly Mug where we had dinner

Pictures of the beach in Cape May

The only place in NJ the beach runs east and west instead of
north and south.  This is looking west.

Looking east

We took this trolly tour of the historic district in Cape May

Our tour guide on the Cape May Trolley tour

Historic hotels and homes

We had dinner at the Ugly Mug and were not impressed. The food was just OK and the selection was of the fried variety. There are several restaurants along this major street in Cape May to pick from.  I would try a different one but, for us, we would prefer one of the places in the historic district.  If you are here from the area and want to be in the tourist area and don’t want to spend too much then this area is fine.  We are just going to be here for once and for a short time so the historic area would have probably been better for us.  OK, maybe next time!

On Thursday the 10th, we got up at our regular time of 7am and went right to picking up camp to leave.  We had a 10:30 am reservation on the Cape May-Lewes Ferry and we needed to be there close to 9:30.  The ferry is 10 miles from our site at the King Nummy Campground and was to take about 25 minutes.  We did great for us, we got there at 9:35am and there were very few vehicles there.  We got in line and were met by ferry security that checked our ID and went into the trailer check for who knows what.  The security guy was a great guy though.  We talked about full time RVing for about 10 minutes.

This is where they first put us in line for the ferry. 

The ferry just came in.  That is where we are going with the rig!

They put us at this angle to load in near first in line.

Around 10am we were asked to move to the front of the line so we didn’t need to make the sharp turn getting on to the ferry.  Getting on to the ferry was no big deal really, just pull forward and follow directions.  I only had two concerns which neither happened.  I was a little worried that we would bottom out leaving the dock on to the ferry.  The other was that I would scrape my truck mirrors on the way through the ferry. They really pulled me real close to the wall!  Anyway, it was all good, no problems!

Just have to drive up the ramp and down into the ferry!

Up we go!  Just don't want to bottom out at the top going down into the ferry!

Good, didn't bottom out!

Very close along the drivers side wall.  The guide is watching my mirrors.

OK, the last few feet and we are in!

The ferry ride is about an hour and a half from Cape May NJ to Lewes Delaware.  The length of the trip is 17 miles and is far enough out to not see land.  The cost is $81 dollars total. Not too bad really. Since it is 180 miles via roads to the same place without the ferry and we need to pay $10 to cross the Delaware Memorial Bridge, it would cost us about $100 to drive versus taking the ferry. And it would take 2 hours longer so it was a no brainer to take the ferry.  It also had the “cool” factor!

Heading out to open water

Arriving at Lewes Delaware

We were only 20 minutes from our next site in the Delaware Beach State Park just south of Rehoboth Beach.  The state park won’t let us in until 2pm and it was 12:30 so we decided to pull off and have some lunch.  Patty did a great job navigating us to a church parking lot behind a great seafood place.  We managed to kill over an hour eating lunch and were now on track to enter the state park just after 2pm. However, now it was raining and just enough to make it a PITA!

Great place to park while we eat lunch

Our site in Delaware Beach State Park

View from our window of the Indian River Inlet Bridge

Sunset from the back of our rig.

The bridge is beautiful at night.  Weird to see this out our front windows

We are just staying here over night to say we have camped in DE.  This is another area we could easily stay a few days but we were sort of on a schedule because of our reservations in Washington DC.  We don’t like to make reservations but it was necessary in DC.  We made this reservation about 3 months ago and I should have put more time in for Cape May and Delaware, Oh well!  Again, next time!

I highly recommend the Delaware Beach State Park for a place to camp while in the area.  I would also recommend the North camp area as it is the newest and the sites are much larger.  The next tip I would give is to stay in one of the south end site.  They are the largest and have a view of the water. 

Our view out the rear and side windows were mostly the Indian River Inlet and of the bridge.  This is a very attractive bridge and is just a couple of years old.  It was a very impressive sight to be camped under it at night. Since it was raining when we arrived we didn’t do anything outside that evening.  The rain did let up and I got out to take a couple of pictures.  

Coast Guard station behind us in the park

New cabins right on the water in the park

Great bar/restaurant in the marina in the park.  We didn't eat there because it was raining

The next morning, before our 12pm departure, we took a hike around to see the immediate area.  It looks like the whole north side of the inlet is new, probably built when the bridge was built.  Now we are off for a very short trip of just 120 miles to Whaleyville Maryland and the Fort Whaley Campground.  

Driving across the Indian River Inlet bridge heading to Maryland

Our Campground in Maryland

Our site at the Fort Whaley Campground.  

We will be at the Fort Whaley Campground for 3 nights to visit with old friends Rick and Pat Hubbard and to see the wild horses on Assateague Island.   Well, we got both accomplished!

Our first night, Friday the 11th, I went and picked up Pat and Rick who parked a couple of miles away.  We had them do that as the campground charges $6 per person to visit.  The charge is pretty standard if the campground has amenities like a pool and Fort Whaley does.  We had a great time catching up and by 11pm it was time to call it and take them back and we all got some sleep.

I learned a new trick at this campground.  The wifi was too far away to pick it up at our site.  I plugged our Pepwave wifi repeater/booster in to a vacant power pole mid-way to the camps wifi antenna.  That's our site in the far background.  This worked very well by the way.

Now, for the bad news, Patty started to feel bad on Saturday.  She was having one of her “can’t get out of bed” times.  She has been having these off and on for the past year and a half.  These episodes usually lead to her becoming dehydrated and having a low blood pressure (passing out). Anyway, we couldn’t make the party Rick and Pat had on Saturday night as Patty couldn’t get out of bed.  We did make it over to their house on Sunday before we went to see the Wild horses.  I will have more on these episodes in our next blog post.

Rick and Pat Hubbard and Patty at their house in the back yard

Rick and Pat's very large back yard.  Great for Parties!

Rick's command post!

We only had to just get on to Assateague Island to see the wild horses.  Actually, we saw 3 sets of horses within just a few minutes.  That’s all we wanted to do there so we headed off to have dinner.  This time we were having dinner at the Waterman’s Seafood Restaurant recommended by Pat and Rick.  I highly recommend this restaurant!  We had some of the best seafood I have ever had at a restaurant and at reasonable prices too.  

Wild horses in the background

Best Seafood ever!

OK, that’s it for Cape May, our very short stay in Delaware, and our visit with Rick and Pat in Maryland.

Stay tuned!