A Small Drive in New Castle County

I had a chance to take a short drive around upper New Castle County yesterday afternoon. It wasn't as much of an automotive wandering as I might have wished, but I had a little time and a reason to be up there and so I took advantage of what I had.

Colleen's Sussex Tech lacrosse team had a game yesterday afternoon against Ursuline Academy. The game was scheduled late, 3:30 p.m., to allow for the several students, Colleen included, who took the SAT that morning.

She and a few others had to drive up separately from the team bus because of the test. Few parents wanted to have their 17 year old, relatively new drivers wheeling around New Castle County -- a place they have not driven before -- on their own. So I agreed to ride along and coach Colleen in her first foray onto I-95 and some of the crowded roads of New Castle County. We took two others with us.

The game was moved away from Ursuline's home field, adjacent to Barley Mill Plaza, because recent heavy rain had left that ground too soggy. We headed instead to Hockessin Montessori School, on old Lancaster Pike, where there was an artificial turf field. The field looked great to play on but it was surrounded by a fence, with no provision for spectators, and made a lousy place to watch a game.

It didn't help that one of the Ursuline moms was loudly disagreeing with the rulings of the referees all game long. I know she cared about her kid, and she may have thought she had a point, but there's no reason to be such a huge jerk. The refs felt it too; eventually one turned and said, simply, "That's enough out of you. Hush."

After the game, Colleen and her friends wanted to ride the team bus back home. It's part of team spirit and camaraderie and I think the coaches like to go over the games on rides home and talk about what went right and what went wrong.

That left me on my own in a part of Delaware I rarely get to visit, with an hour or so of daylight and a newly cleared sky. I headed north, into Hockessin, and west on Valley Road. I cut north again and crossed briefly into Pennsylvania on Little Baltimore Road (I wanted to see if I might spot a Boundary Monument -- no luck), then continued west and south on Doe Run Road and then Corner Ketch Road. I took that to Route 72 and jogged east a bit to hop onto Upper Pike Creek Road, which I followed south to Kirkwood Highway. I love the fact that Delaware, so flat and open where I live, also includes roads that wind along small stream valleys.

Eventually, of course, I had to return to modern highways and cruise back to Lewes. I comforted myself by listening to the first part of the evening's concert by The Dead, on Sirius Radio's The Dead Channel. I'm listening to the rest of that show on the Internet Archive as I write.

I like to get out a see new things. Sometimes I can make it a walk, and sometimes it needs to be a drive. But I am thankful that there is a world to see, roads to explore, and landscapes to learn.