Biking in Cape May

We recently visited friends who retired to Lewes, Delaware (near Rehoboth Beach). We've visited them many times at this point, so this time to do something different we decided to take the Lewes-Cape May ferry and bike into Cape May. Going on a ferry with a bike is fun. I'm not sure why - I guess because you're kind both pedestrian and vehicle. You roll onto the ferry like a car, except without any traffic hassles, and you're traveling light, like a pedestrian. I've taken a bike onto ferries in Portugal, the Netherlands, Delaware/New Jersey, and of course, there's the Staten Island Ferry in New York (which I've ridden as part of the Five Boro Bike Tour). 

Ferries vary in size. The ones I took on my Netherlands trip were tiny little boats - rafts, almost (though big enough to hold a couple of cars), crossing tiny canals or small rivers. Until recently we had a fairly small fdrry locally: the now (at least temporarily) defunct White's Ferry on the Potomac. It's a cable ferry across the Potomac at a point where it's only about 900 feet wide. White's Ferry started operating around 1800, and is named for the Confederate (of course) veteran who operated it just after the Civil War - the ferry boat itself is named after a Confederate (of course) general, Jubal Early. Right now White's Ferry isn't operating due to some dispute with the owner of the land on the Virginia side. I hope it comes back!

Anyway, the Delaware Bay crossing is about 15 miles (I know people who've kayaked it!) and so the Cape May-Lewes ferry is more substantial, with a vehicle deck, a middle deck with enclosed seating, a restaurant, bar, and gift shop, and an open top deck. We spent the 85 minute ride from Delaware to New Jersey topside, taking in the scenery and the sun.

There was a mini parade float version of the ferry riding on the ferry

Once on the New Jersey side we rolled off and began our five mile bike ride from the ferry terminal into Cape May. Of the four of us I was the only one without an eBike. Fortunately,  the terrain was flat and this wasn't a fast crew and so I didn't have to work too hard to keep up. 

This was a pretty ambitious ride for Valerie - a lot of riding in traffic, or in bike lanes alongside traffic on fairly busy roads. Definitely a little hairier than our trail-based riding at home, and she handled it very well! She did occasionally have to stop because here hands would go numb. It's not clear how much of that was her Reynaud's Syndrome, and how much of it was from clutching the handlebars out of fear.

Our first stop was Bagel Time Café, located right on the beach. Interestingly, this was the only time all day that we saw the beach - the rest of the day we were a few blocks inland in town. Our friends' primary destination was a specialty store called the Cape May Peanut Butter Company, and we biked there next. We locked our bikes up outside of the peanut butter store but left our peanut butter shopping until the end of the day so we didn't have to carry the jars around all day.

We spent the rest of the day browsing the cute little shops in Cape May. As is typical with this somewhat ADD group we could never agree on a eating another meal, and each of us just noshed when we felt like it. We tried getting ice cream together, but in our group's ADD fashion we couldn't find the ice cream place and when we finally found one, we didn't like it as the only thing they sold were giant custom chipwiches. - you couldn't just get a scoop of ice cream there. We decided to hold out instead for ice cream at the Hopkins Farm Creamery, which is among our favorite ice cream in the world and is conveniently right near our friends' house. 

Mostly we window shopped, though did Valerie buy a cute dress (unusual - Valerie doesn't often wear dresses). Finally, at the end of the day we returned to our bikes and did our serious shopping of the day - for peanut butter. I hadn't understood what exactly the peanut butter shop could be selling that would have merited a whole store - I mean, peanut butter is just one thing, right? But it turns out they have many varieties of flavored nut butters, plus all kinds of peanut-based foods and candies. I bought a small jar of cappuccino peanut butter (which is really good!), while our friends kind of bought out the store - lots of gifts, plus restocking their own peanut larder.

The ride back to the ferry should have been just the reverse of how we got into town, but our friends have this interesting habit of disagreeing over which way to go and pointing in exact opposite directions (we've also experienced this with them in the car). We all biked around in circles for a little bit, not something we appreciated since we were all kinda tired at that point, but eventually we got on track and made our way back to the ferry.

At the peanut store

On the ferry ride home we sat at a table inside, as we had had quite a bit of sun during the day. Our friends bought Valerie and orange crush cocktail, which she actually drank.

A fun day for all. We rode only about 15 miles, but it was an adventure!