Marvelous Delmarva

Linda Burton posting from Dover, Delaware – “Sweet or unsweet?” My head jerked back in surprise at the question; at first I was flustered; then pleased. “You seriously have sweet tea here?” I asked my server. “Well yes, Hon, we do,” she replied, in an accent that curved sweetly upwards in syllables that were music to my ears. “Then I must be back in the south,” I grinned. “Nobody has asked me that question since January.” It was true; it was January when the Journey left Virginia headed west; since then I’d traveled the Midwestern states, the Great Lakes states, and the New England states. But today, after I crossed the Delaware Memorial Bridge from New Jersey, I entered Delmarva, where the language is Southern American English. She called me Hon! Not “Miss” or “Dear;” I was Hon again, here in this homey restaurant, where I could get iced tea that someone had already gone to the trouble to sweeten for me. What a marvelous place! I came for Dover, of course, the 49^th Capital City of the Journey; capital of the First State, Delaware. And, besides the unique distinction and bragging rights of being capital of the first state, it’s the only capital city that is on a peninsula. And that peninsula houses parts of three states – Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. DelMarVa, get it? I’ll get into the specifics of land boundaries in later posts, but for now look at the map to understand the lay of the land. Technically, the “peninsula” is an island, thanks to the manmade 14-mile C&D Canal that connects Chesapeake Bay with the Delaware River. The Canal is considered the beginning of the Delmarva Peninsula, a mostly rural land of farms and fishing, where restaurants have collards on the menu, and the tea is sweet. » read more