New house, new trains, new adventures…….

It is hard to believe that Brad and I have been living in Rehoboth Beach for nearly half a year now. Yes, we have been busy. Still it is remarkable how time flies. More remarkable is the fact that we really do not miss DC all that much. There was some concern initially that we would find the transition to life in Delaware difficult. Far from it! Of course it did help that we had some friends who have been living here in Rehoboth Beach for over 15 years. Jim and Craig managed to ease us into the local social scene, as well as give us some valuable advice on who to deal with in terms of services for the house.

One of the features which attracted us to this house was the fact that we are within walking/biking distance of downtown Rehoboth, restaurants and grocery stores. One of the major bicycle paths is just outside of our front door. The Junction and Breakwater trail makes for great biking up to Lewes. Coming back to Rehoboth Beach the bike path goes by the Cape May – Lewes Ferry Terminal, into Cape Henlopen State Park and continues on Gordon’s Pond Trail into Rehoboth. It is a nice circular ride with super views.

Gordon’s Pond, a brackish marsh.

Just down the street from us is the Revelation Craft Brewing Company. It has become one of our regular Sunday hang outs. Every Sunday from 3 pm to 5 pm $1 oysters are on the menu. One had better be there at 3, because they often run out of the bivalves by 4 o’clock. Now I do realize that not everyone is keen on oysters. Not to worry. Revelation Craft Brewery also has some mouthwatering chicken wings and handmade pizzas on offer.

Beer and oysters at the Revelation Craft Brewery. iPhone Photo

Tuesday nights is “Rigby’s Night”. A local watering hole on Baltimore Avenue, Rigby’s has become the meeting place for the “Rigby’s Raiders” on Tuesday evenings. It’s a motley crew of older guys like us, getting together for gossip, drinks and dinner. The menu is not very extensive. However the food is not your typical bar food, being surprisingly good and reasonably priced.

Of course there have been some projects around the house. The major one being the installation of solar panels. There are no trees shading the house, unlike our former residence in DC. Lots of roof square footage available also. Given the incentives from the State of Delaware and the Federal Government it seemed a no-brainer to have solar power put in. The system can generate up to around 15 kW with 36 panels. CNCSolar, the installer, estimates that we will have the cost of the system recouped in about 4 years. Looking at our last month’s electric bill I certainly believe them!

Installing solar panels

The solar panels are up

The power inverters. Interestingly all this technology is made in Germany, except for the meter and the switch.

Our pool is also getting an upgrade. Speaking of the pool: I am genuinely surprised about how much I like the pool. Brad has always liked to go swimming at the Wilson Pool in DC. So he was looking forward to having his very own pool at the house. Me, not so much. But here I am getting into the water two or three times a day. Back to the upgrade though. The pool is heated. Heating all that water takes quite a bit of energy. A lot of the heat just radiates out during the night and on colder days. A cover will keep this to a minimum. Besides it will also keep out leaves and such, as well as the occasional frog.

An automatic pool cover like the one to be installed at our house. Photo by Coverpools.com

Another frog in the pool

What has not quite gone according to plan is my model train hobby. I was originally hopeful that I could get my G scale railroad running again in short order. In fact it was running for a while (see my post about it here), but unfortunately it was not to be. At two points the railroad had to cross the driveway, however the track just could not stand up to the vehicles. So now it is back to the drawing board. Maybe I can get some advice also from the members of the Delaware SeaSide Railroad Club. I joined up a while ago. Unfortunately it is a bit of a drive to get to the meetings.

Track Issues on the Driveway

My HO scale layout has also not materialized quite yet. However the good news is that the carpenters have now started on the layout bench work. Fingers crossed. Maybe by next weekend I will be able to start laying track.

The future HO scale layout area

Interestingly enough I also dug out my Sony a7c full frame camera again. Photography had fallen by the wayside for quite some time. Not entirely sure why. But bicycling through the state parks just presented so many wonderful “Kodak Moments” that I decided to take the camera along on rides once again. I am not the world’s best photographer, but here are some shots I have taken during the last few months:

Sunset viewed from our front porch

Our resident wood chuck: “Woody”. He/she is eating our cedar patio furniture! iPhone photo.

A Blue Heron has also taken up residence in our nearby drainage pond

A Bald Eagle (?) in Gordon’s Pond State park

“Bald Cyprus” trees in Tap Pond State Park. This is the northern most part of the US where these cyprus trees can be found.

The Lewes Light House

One of the restored watch towers along the Atlantic Coast south of Rehoboth Beach. These were built during the Second World War to watch out for a possible German invasion

We did a dolphin watching cruise. Lo and behold we actually did see a few of them.

My 70th birthday dinner at the Blue Moon the day after we moved into our new house. This desert is called “The Bomb” for obvious reasons…iPhone Photo

And since this is ostensibly a blog about trains here is my latest addition to the HO roster. A Bachmann Trains HO model of the relatively new Amtrak ALC-42 diesel-electric locomotive built by Siemens. It is a nice looking model. Can’t wait to see it run.

All photos by Ralf Meier, unless otherwise stated. Sony a7c and iPhone 12 Pro.