Last weekend my friends Alison, Darra, Tracie, and I went on a girls’ weekend to the Delaware beaches. We have gone on a number of girls’ weekends together in the past and decided we needed to get in one last trip before Tracie becomes has a baby at the end of this year. We were aiming for something close to home and settled on going to either Dewey Beach or Rehoboth Beach, which border each other. Thanks to a recommendation for a condo from another friend we wound up staying in Dewey, but still spent a lot of time in Rehoboth for reasons that will become abundantly clear shortly if you don’t already know why.

My own real experiences on the DelMarVa peninsula (the aptly named area that covers the eastern shores of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia) have been in Ocean City, Maryland. The Maryland Library Association conference is held there every May, and I have gone over for that. My first trip was also off-season for a bachelorette party one April many moons ago. I still have never been to Ocean City in-season and have felt little to no desire to ever go there unless I have to for some reason like those previously mentioned. That is saying something as I adore the beach. Ocean City is just not the kind of beach experience I’m looking for with the crazy touristy boardwalk and the same 3 restaurants and stores every other block for the entire expanse of the town. Not for me.

Not knowing anything about either Dewey or Rehoboth other than their location just north of Ocean City I was rather expecting the same experience. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I’m totally down with heading back to the beach there at any time. I’ll still probably not ever go back during peak season because with only one real road running north and south I can imagine the traffic is a nightmare. Plus it seems that you can only rent by the week in-season and I would much prefer to spend a week’s vacation somewhere else. However, for a long weekend getaway during shoulder season it’s perfect. The weather was still great, but we could rent for less than a week and it wasn’t nearly as crowded as it would be during the summer.

Dewey Beach is a teeny, tiny little strip of land just south of Rehoboth Beach. It’s only .03 square miles, so as you can imagine there’s not much actually in Dewey. There’s some houses, condos, and hotels along with a few restaurants and stores but if you’re staying there you’re most likely going to want to venture up to Rehoboth where there is a lot more going on. It has a great little downtown area by the beach with lots of little shops, restaurants, and bars. Away from the beach on the main drag you come into the area on there’s a number of outlet stores and what I would consider your more suburban commercial district with your grocery and liquor stores, chain restaurants (and others), etc.

We got into town late on Thursday evening (i.e. around 9:30, which is late because we’re old), so we didn’t really do much other than get to the condo, figure out sleeping arrangements and crash. Friday morning we decided to go out for breakfast and after much searching around on the internets we decided on the Crystal Restaurant in Rehoboth, which turned out to be a good pick. Then we hit the grocery and liquor store for the provisions we needed for the weekend. We decided we wanted to get dessert from a local bakery and found one online that we decided to give a chance. We all laughed when we pulled into the parking lot and realized it was right across a small road from where we had eaten breakfast.

After that we headed to the beach for the first time. I decided to go for a walk since walking on the beach is one of my favorite things to do. I kind of just left everyone else behind because I knew none of them walk as fast as I would nor would they want to walk as far. I walked from the beach where we were staying in Dewey up to the boardwalk in Rehoboth and back. I figure it was about 4 miles round trip.

Friday night we headed into the downtown area of Rehoboth to check it out. We walked around the shops for awhile. I picked up this cute ornament from the Christmas shop there. I love getting Christmas ornaments as souvenirs especially when I can personalize them. There were two sizes of this ornament one with 3 beach chairs and one with 5. I was like aw man I wish they had one with 4 so I could get it and put our names on it. Of course I eventually came up with the brilliant idea of putting in utero Baby U’s name on one of the chairs.

We had dinner at a place called the Shorebreak Lodge, which turned out to be super tasty. They also had a nice little patio/courtyard area that for some reason we were the only ones taking advantage of. It was a great night to dine al fresco so everyone else was totally missing out.

After dinner we grabbed dessert at this crazy ice cream shop that listed over 70 flavors. It was super hard choosing what to get. I limited myself to only their homemade flavors, but that didn’t really put much of a limitation on my choices. A lot of the flavors had very amorphous names that didn’t really describe what they were, which made it even harder. I ended up with something called This Ish the Stuff or something like that. I could not even begin to tell you what was in it because the list of ingredients the guy listed off to me was book length, but it was excellent that is all you need to know.

Our final event of the evening was taking in a drag show at the Blue Moon. It was a little crowded for my taste, but the show was fun. The bar also had a really awesome retractable roof. I think it would be a great bar to hang out in when there’s nothing going on and there weren’t so many people there.

Saturday was our shopping and beach day. We hit the outlet malls in the morning. I am an outlet outlaw though and have a note in my permanent Rehoboth outlet mall file. You can get a coupon book from the services office if you have a AAA card, which I do. I did not however realize that the one I was carrying with me had expired the week before and that my husband hadn’t given me the new one. The lady behind the desk pointed this out to me and grudgingly went ahead and gave me the coupon book, but told me she was making a note in my file about it. So I left the outlet mall with some clothes plus a permanent record.

After grabbing lunch at Big Fish we headed to the beach. I walked to Rehoboth and back again and then settled in to finish the book I was reading. It was a lovely day, and just the very reason we went there. I’m glad the weather cooperated for us.

Saturday was our night in. We cooked dinner, ate all the cheese (plus fig jam YUM!), and played Cranium. Since the baby mama and I can’t drink we dubbed ourselves Team Sober and Darra and Alison made up Team Drunk. I’ll let you guess who won both games. Hint: this is not a Trojan Horse, which was Darra’s guess.

Sunday we spent eating breakfast, packing up and then heading home. It was a great weekend, and I was sad to see it end. I’m sure Kevin will gladly take care of the baby for a weekend so we can do it again next year.