Delaware Is A Pretty State!

Day Three - Sunday morning! When Susie and Bob lived in Delaware, Mark never had more than two weeks of vacation at most (long story), so we never had the chance to visit. This trip was our first time in the state, and we took full advantage by spending some time exploring the countryside in our rental car.

Delaware truly surprised us with its beauty—at least the area where we were staying! Just one turn off the main road could lead you down a quiet, idyllic street, shaded by a canopy of trees like the one in the photo below.

We had seen the sign for Brandywine Creek State Park so we loaded the name into Waze and struck out for an adventure.

Once again, the weather was glorious.

All around the region were these beautiful stone walls like we've seen in other countries.

The following is from SAH Archipedia and the article was written by W. Barksdale Maynard.

For many years following the arrival of the utopian-minded Pierre Samuel du Pont to America, the du Pont family held land in a kind of communistic arrangement. But “Boss Henry” du Pont broke with tradition, seizing for himself huge tracts out of the common holdings, to the dismay of some of his kin. As if forever to mark the landscape as his own, he (and later his son, Colonel Henry A. du Pont) had Italian masons build extensive stone fences around their far-flung estate, using rock from Brandywine Granite Quarry which the family partly controlled. The walls at today's Brandywine Creek State Park are good examples—solidly built and with capstones so level on the top that one can easily walk on them. The park property was bought by landscape architect Robert Wheelwright in 1951 and auctioned after his death, at which time developers proposed a housing tract for the 433 acres. Concerned citizens pushed the reluctant State Park Commission to buy the property instead, and today it is cherished open space.

You can see the amazing detail and how you could truly walk along the top of the stones!!

This farm was right at the entrance to the park. We were wondering if the caretaker lived there. 

As we were headed back to the hotel, we passed another silo. I'm assuming this is a silo. I looked up the one above and couldn't really find any details. There were private property signs on the road leading up to the house.

This little house (below) was directly across from our hotel. There were several in a row and they were so cute!! I love seeing the different types of architecture when we travel.

Only two more posts after this one -- the actual wedding and reception and our visit to Longwood Gardens. We crammed a lot into four days!!