lewes

Delaware Seashore State Park offers a number of opportunities for visitors to explore and experience the wonders of the Inland Bays.

On each Thursday through Aug. 27, the park offers pontoon boat tours on Indian River Bay and Rehoboth Bay.

On Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays through Aug. 29, visitors can tour marsh islands in Rehoboth Bay via kayak.

On Sundays, July 12, 16, Aug. 9 and 23, visitors can explore the Assawoman Wildlife Area via kayak, located at the west side of Little Assawoman Bay.

A collaborative effort between Sussex Cyclists and state transportation officials is helping to save the lives of those who cycle along the Route 1 corridor.

For the past three years, under the hot sun, giving up Saturday mornings and even at night, volunteers, including those from Sussex Cyclists, and Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) staff have manned bicycle safety checkpoints.

State transportation officials made it official this morning: The Del. 1 expansion project is done.

But here’s the fine print: the little detail work like painting lines on some travel lanes, wrapping up paving on side roads and planting sod really won’t be finished until Friday.

Even as the project completion was being announced, the turn lane off the highway onto Freeman Highway, the main access road for the Cape May-Lewes Ferry, was closed for paving.

As more gas stations throughout Delaware crept toward the dreaded $4 a gallon figure, fewer travelers took to the roads over the Memorial Day weekend.

The state's busiest highways -- Del. 1 and I-95 -- both showed a large dropoff in the number of cars passing through toll plazas, according to numbers released Wednesday by the state Department of Transportation.

Memorial Day weekend traffic on Del. 1 was down 10 percent, or 65,000 vehicles, from last year. The state collected the figures from the two toll plazas on Del. 1 from Thursday to Tuesday.

Everything was in place to kick off a summer of discontent.

Ever-rising gasoline prices. Grim economic news. Global environmental worries. Election year partisan wrangling.

None of it intruded at Rehoboth Beach early Saturday, though, as Miles, Lexi and Riley Keogh of Alexandria, Va., opened Memorial Day weekend playing tag with a gentle surf.

"We came over early, so we missed a lot of the traffic," Miles said during a break in the action on the city's storm-battered but recovering beach. "It wasn't the worst we've ever been in. I'd say it's probably in the top third. Gas prices aren't great, but they're not that horrible."

As much as kids know that the 3 R's define the school year, they also know that summer is all about the 4 S's. That's right: Sun, surf, sea and sand are about all kids need for a memory-making family vacation.

Of course, a week at the beach along the Delaware-Maryland-Virginia shore also means arcades, thrill rides, water parks and Thrasher's fries. But if you find that, by day four or five, you're looking for something a little different, something a little special that might mean new memories, you're probably not alone. Here are a few favorite excursions. Some take a full day, others just a few hours, but regardless of where you're staying, they're worth the effort.

Construction crews are dwindling, the smell of fresh asphalt is in the air and the morning commute gets a little bit smoother each day.

But motorists aren't the only ones happy to have the sound of jackhammers cease and see the hundreds of orange traffic cones disappear.

For business owners along Route 1 in the Lewes-Rehoboth Beach area -- many of whom have seen a drop in customers since the construction crews moved in fall of 2006 -- the end can't come soon enough.

This summer, the magic word for bars and clubs at the beach is "outdoors." From Rehoboth Beach to Ocean City, the night life is moving to poolside cabanas, outdoor tiki bars and waterfront cantinas.

Rehoboth Beach

Aqua Grill on Baltimore Avenue will be holding serious parties this summer. After an off-season makeover, the restaurant reopens this weekend as a warm-up for Memorial Day's blowout. Sponsored by PlanetOut, the three-day party features appearances by singer and performer Randy Thompson from Key West, Fla.

Many people are convinced John G. Griffith would be alive today if something as simple as rumble strips were in place along the Route 1 corridor in coastal Sussex.

Griffith, 44, of Timonium, Md., was killed early last July 28, as he worked on his bicycle off the shoulder near the Indian River Inlet bridge. Police said the driver apparently fell asleep, drifted onto the shoulder and hit Griffith, director of Johns Hopkins Fibroid Center for the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics. He died at the scene.

American Indians knew it. The U.S. Army knew it. And now thousands of readers of AARP Magazine, the publication for the 50-plus set, know it.

Cape Henlopen State Park has one of the best beaches north of Florida.

"It's a perfect location," said Rob Schroeder, a Lewes-area resident and longtime fan of the park. "With the ocean, with the bay, with the pine barren and the marsh behind it, it's a park that has something for everybody."