Cape Henlopen State Park, DE I

Cape Henlopen State Park, DE

Wednesday, 28 March 2018

The propane learning experience continued for quite a while today. I did call the RV place not too far from the state park and they said sure they could propane me up. Unfortunately, when I got there about 10:00 they told me that, just a few minutes earlier, the guy who pumped the propane had to leave to pick up RVs from a trade show that ended the previous Sunday where they still hadn’t retrieved a whole bunch of their wares.

I’ve found that most of these places that sell propane have one and only one person who does the pumping. Maybe they have to pass some federal test or something.

Anyway, this guy wouldn’t be back for many hours, they said, so I decided to keep going down the road. While I’m driving I don’t care so much about the lack of propane. The only thing that would be using it is the frig/freezer and as cold as the weather was, I figured nothing would be going bad right away.

To get to the next town where several RV/propane deliverers were, I took a road that AAA said was a scenic one. And I’m sure it is during a season other than winter. As things stood, it was a nice ordinary Delaware country road.

At a closed roadside produce stand the other day I saw a sign that said “Spring delayed. Winter closure still in effect.” With this continuing very cold weather, spring has definitely been delayed in this part of the country. I saw some japonica blooming. Mr. and Mrs. Mallard were waddling off to find a place to build a nest back at our last campground (in his desire to check them out – or worse - Dexter could barely contain himself – actually, he couldn’t contain himself and I had to work really hard to do the containing). I’ve seen a few tulip trees blooming and some jonquils. But most other signs of spring aren’t here. It seems odd when I think of all the signs of life I saw in other states. I’m guessing it’s the result of all the nor’easters that have come through this part of the country this winter.

Back to the propane quest, I drove to yet another place I’d found on the internet and it was there that somebody figured out why I hadn’t been able to get any propane before. Apparently my intake nozzle is supposed to have a gasket on it, which was missing. The guys here guessed it had stuck to the hose end the last time I’d been filled up in Jacksonville. Luckily they sold the same RVs that I have so they went to one of those units and took the gasket, so I wouldn’t have to keep hanging around while they tried to get an order filled by the supplier.  And they didn't even charge me for it.  Really nice of them, and now it’s really nice to have propane. The forecast is for 37° again tonight, and I’d rather do it with some heat this time.

So now I know why I couldn’t get filled up anywhere else, and I know to check my equipment for gaskets after getting filled up in the future.

This new park appears to be near the ocean, but I can’t tell by the map just how near. One of their trails is a dunes trail, which is suggestive. There’s sand at all the campsites. Lots of it. We’ll be here 3 days so I expect we’ll explore a bit.

Oddly, I get a phone signal and an internet signal but only a few junky TV stations – none of the major networks. I say oddly because lots of people come to this part of the state. I guess everybody has cable.