Adding the first state to our map . . . our 42nd state

The next state on our agenda was Delaware, and we had decided to travel through the Delmarva Peninsula which would allow us to also pick up Maryland on our way to Norfolk, VA . . . without going through Baltimore or DC. 

We also wanted to visit Philadelphia one day, so we were looking for a campground close to the Delaware/Pennsylvania/New Jersey border.  There weren’t a lot of choices, but we ended up finding Lums Pond State Park, about a 1/2 hour southwest of Wilmington.

Lums Pond State Park was recently upgraded, and now all the sites are 50 amp FHU, roads and sites are paved, and the sites are nicely spaced.  It’s a very nice state park!

Getting to it had us puzzling over the maps for a while, though . . .

It was only about 150 miles, any way you sliced it, so that was OK, but every route we looked at either took us on a turnpike or through a major city. 

We first though we could take State Hwy 202 (none of the routes shown above), but it increased the drive time considerably, and would really take some concentration to stay on the correct road.  That wasn’t giving me a good feeling!  Every bridge that crossed the Delaware River was a $20 toll for our setup, so that didn’t make a difference to any of the routes.

We ultimately decided to take Hwy 206 & 202 to Trenton, where we would pick up I-295, which paralleled the New Jersey Turnpike to the Delaware Memorial Bridge, where we picked up US-13 to the state park.

It was a good decision – 202 was divided highway all the way to Trenton, and then 295 was good highway without too much traffic midday.  There was also a Flying J Travel Center right before we crossed the bridge, so we got fueled up, too.

All in all, it was a good travel day, and we arrived at Lums Pond State Park in time for lunch.  I had broken the frames of my glasses the day before, and fortunately there was a Walmart Supercenter with an Eye Center just a few miles up the road (in Maryland).  My glasses are almost 3 years old, but they still have that frame in stock, so it was a quick fix to just pop my lenses out of the old frame and into the new one.  10 minutes and $68 later, I was all set with new glasses!

I had work to get done on Tuesday and Wednesday, and scheduled a vacation day on Thursday so we could spend the whole day in Philadelphia – that’s a blog post of its own – so we didn’t do too much exploring of the park itself. 

Lums Pond has several hiking trails, including the Swamp Forest Trail that goes all the way around the pond.  There’s a small section of it that is accessible from the fishing dock in the campground,

so on Wednesday before dinner we took Casey for a little hike.  We walked down to the fishing dock,

Leaving the dock, we started out on the Swamp Forest Trail, and spotted this tree that has seen a lot of activity.

Casey was excited to be out on a trail again!

We stopped at a few more overlooks of the pond,

talked to some fellow campers who were down there fishing, and saw a group of ducks taking a break on an old log.

The Swamp Forest Trail ended at the Boat launch, and a little further along we picked up the Little Jersey Trail to take us back to the campground.

Casey likes to lead the way when we’re hiking! 

Back at the campground, we stopped to take a look in the small camp store.  There we saw something interesting behind the store . . . a vending machine for bait!

That’s something we’ve never seen before!

We enjoyed our stay in the park, and it also turned out to be a good location for exploring Philadelphia . . . more on that in the next blog post!