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Delaware 
{State Bird, Blue Hen Chicken} {State Flower, Peach Blossom} {State Tree, American Holly}
Economy: Du Pont Chemical
Company, food processing,auto assembly, nylon, clothing,
rubber, plastic, chickens,
soybeans, corn, potatoes, dairy, fishing, crabbing.
Although Delaware is known for chemical plants it does have some nice ocean beaches
I-95 and the New Jersey Turnpike converge at Wilmington, from where US-13 runs south through the state. More often called the Du Pont Highway , it was paid for and constructed by the industrialists so that they could ride in comfort between their Wilmington mansions and Dover. A direct car ferry connects Cape May, the southern tip of New Jersey and Lewes, at the mouth of the Delaware Bay.
The thirty-mile-long Delaware coast is one of the little-known jewels of the east coast. Its only built-up resort, which is packed solid in summer, is the traditional seaside town of Rehoboth Beach . The historic fishing community of Lewes is also attractive, but what really sets the area apart is the ease with which you can find long stretches of sand to yourself. For every developed stretch, about ten times more has been preserved as open space, most extensively at Delaware Seashore State Park , which stretches south from Rehoboth to the Maryland border.
A nonstop parade of motels and shopping malls along the six miles of Hwy-1 links Lewes with REHOBOTH BEACH , Delaware's largest and liveliest beach resort, which merges into Dewey Beach at its southern end. Crowded all summer, but nearly empty the rest of the year, Rehoboth - which started life as a Methodist revival camp, and attracts so many escapees from DC that it's known as the Nation's Summer Capital - is more family oriented than other beach towns, lacking the nightlife of Ocean City but making up for it with miles of clean and uncrowded sands.
Rehoboth has less of a history than Lewes, though its wooden boardwalk is one of the last on the east coast. It stretches along the Atlantic to either side of Rehoboth Avenue - always " The Avenue " - which acts as the main drag, its four short blocks clogged with souvenir shoppers browsing though the usual array of T-shirts and seaside kitsch. Most of the restaurants and nightspots are concentrated here, with Thrashers French Fries stands and burger bars mixed in with the mock-Caribbean beach shack decor of the Back Porch Café , 59 Rehoboth Ave (tel 302/227-3674), and the gaudy Mexican touch of the Iguana Grill , a block north at 52 Baltimore Ave (tel 302/227-5957). After dark, the action shifts to the anglophile environs of the Country Squire , 19 Rehoboth Ave (tel 302/227-3985), which has the largest beer selection for miles.
If shopping is your passion, Rehoboth has the largest concentration of outlet stores in the Delmarva area, with more than 140 famous name shops like Nike, Donna Karan, Gap and Coach, where, as in all of Delaware, you can shop tax-free. You can't miss the blatant consumerism along Route 1 - just follow the tide of cars inching toward the latest bargains.
South of Rehoboth, Delaware Seashore State Park (tel 302/227-2800, ) stretches for miles along a thin, sandy peninsula, split by Hwy-1 and bounded on the east by the Atlantic and on the west by various freshwater marshlands. There's little here apart from beachfront parking areas ($5) and the park's campground (tel 302/539.7202 or 1-877/98PARKS) until you approach the Maryland border, where the concrete tower blocks of Bethany Beach do little to prepare you for the Costa del Sol-like concentrations of hotels and condos in Ocean City, ten miles further along.
DOVER , the capital of Delaware, struggles to attract visitors as they bypass the city en route to the beach resorts of Rehoboth and Maryland's Ocean City. Located in the mostly agricultural center of the state, just west of US-13, Dover is basically a very small town, with a low-rise business district hemmed in by blocks of suburban houses. South of Lockerman Street , the main route through town, a few strangely somnolent governmental buildings center upon the 1792 Old State House , its old legislative chambers now restored as a museum (Tues-Sat 10am-4.30pm, Sun 1.30-4.30pm; free) and furnished with early American antiques. To the west, around the oval town green , lawyers and insurance brokers have taken over historic buildings such as the Golden Fleece Tavern , where Delaware's early legislators agreed to ratify the Constitution.
In the same building as the friendly visitor center (Mon-Sat 8.30am-4.30pm, Sun 1.30-4.30pm; tel 302/739-4266), at the corner of Duke of York and Federal streets next to the Old State House, the impressive Biggs Museum of American Art (Wed-Sat 10am-4pm, Sun 1.30-4.30pm; free) has historical and art displays downstairs, while the upper floor is given over to paintings, furniture, silver and other period housewares. The Delaware State Museums (Tues-Sat 10am-3.30pm; free; ) includes the trio located a short walk west of the green; the Archaeology Museum and Museum of Small Town Life contain fairly tedious displays of anthropological detritus - Native American shell necklaces, wooden water pipes from early Wilmington and the like - but not to be missed is the Johnson Victrola Museum . The outwardly unassuming building houses a large collection of phonographs, dedicated to the memory of Dover-born engineer Eldridge Reeves Johnson, who helped to invent the Victrola . The layout is like a 1920s music store: dozens of "talking machines," from early wind-ups to prototype jukeboxes, play period recordings, and comical photographs document early, pre-electric recording techniques - entire orchestras crowd together around huge megaphones. Pride of place goes to a painting of a dog, Nipper, listening to a Victrola, an image made familiar as "His Master's Voice." In 1929 Johnson sold the rights to his machine, and to his trademark dog, to RCA for $29 million.
Every Tuesday and Friday
for over fifty years, Spence's Bazaar , two blocks south on Queen Street
at New Burton Road, has hosted a free-for-all flea market . All of Dover
turns out for this, including dozens of local Amish , who ride here in
their ancient horse-drawn buggies to sell homegrown fruits and vegetables.
Though it's not as well known as the Amish community of Pennsylvania's
Lancaster County, the area around Dover has nearly as large an Amish population,
concentrated in the farmlands to the west of town; happily for them, their
presence has yet to become a tourist attraction. If you're not around on
flea market days, Lockerman Street hosts a variety of street stalls every
day during fine weather. Most of Dover's restaurants and hotels are concentrated
on Lockerman Street and State Street in the town center, just north of
the green. The Tudor House B&B at 228 N State St (tel 302/736-1763
or 1-877/736-1763; $50-75) is an amiable if somewhat dishevelled place
to stay and C'Moore's at 24 Lockerman St (tel 302/674-8875) is a fine spot
to fill up on a homestyle cooked dinner or sandwiches. The US-13 highway
also has some budget accommodation, such as the Comfort Inn (tel 302/674-3300;
$50-75), two blocks south of Lockerman Street.
