Great weather and lots of events brought tons of people into Delaware’s Cape Region for the July Fourth weekend. On Friday night at 9:30 p.m., 25 people stood in line outside of King’s Ice Cream in Lewes while live music poured out the doors of Besemé a block away. On a parking meter in front of R&L Liquors, police placed a courtesy notice advising motorists that the street would be closed to all traffic starting at 6 a.m. the next day.
Saturday was non-stop from sun-up until after sundown. In Rehoboth Beach, when the sun was clearing the horizon, the dawn found people preparing for the 7:30 running of the Beach Paper 5K. More than 300 runners and walkers toed the mark and pushed their molecules into motion down Henlopen Avenue and around the in-town circuit. The Nation’s Summer Capital never looked back as the streets stayed full all day, until well after midnight when the final stragglers watched the Funsters pack up their equipment in the wake of a post-fireworks concert at the Bandstand.
In Lewes, the July Fourth games filled Second Street with children, parents and grandparents, chalk on the streets, eggs flying through the air and plates filled with dark and gooey fruit awaiting mouths eager to participate in the pie-eating contest. People strolled into the heart of town from the Historic Lewes Farmers Market and the crowd pulsed all day through the artists’ stalls at the annual St. Peter’s Sidewalk Sale of Art as they came and went from the games and the boat parade. Red, white and blue and stars and stripes were everywhere. The annual Fourth of July Doo-Dah Parade rolled out of Manila Avenue somewhere in the vicinity of the appointed hour between 5:15 and 6. Thousands of people lined the streets to witness dozens of patriotically decorated floats rolling past houses flying flags and hung with bunting while the occasional crackle of fireworks rung out from sidestreets.
Then in the evening, eyes from all over Delaware’s Cape Region shifted upward as public and private fireworks displays filled the Sussex skies. When the Fourth of July lands on the weekend, it’s wide open along the coast. And when it falls on a Saturday, and the celebrations go into the wee hours, the day after – Sunday – provides an amazingly welcome day of rest.
Tags: Beach Paper 5K, July Fourth, King's Ice Cream, Lewes, Rehoboth Beach
Barefootin' 
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