The Last State
A Day in Delaware | Ebright Azimuth, Delaware’s Highest Point | First State National Historic Park | Kayaking the Brandywine River | April 2023
When we learned that we would be spending time in the Philadelphia area with my work, I knew that this was my first real opportunity to FINALLY visit Delaware – the only state I had not been to, and that Jess and I hadn’t been to together. (Jess visited Delaware with her family in 2001, which is why she claimed that Alabama was her 50th state last year.)
On our second full day in King of Prussia, I had a day off and the weather was optimal, so we decided to hit as many of our metrics for a state as we could. We drove South to the border, and celebrated as we crossed into our 50th state together — in less than 10 years of marriage. Equally as impressive, this was Charlotte’s 49th state!
Our first and easiest stop for the day was to visit the highest point of Delaware, Ebright Azimuth, located right on the border of Pennsylvania and Delaware. After driving into Delaware and past the marker for the highpoint, we parked in a nearby neighborhood on the Pennsylvania side and walked the sidewalk into the state, grabbing pictures with both the highpoint sign and the ‘Welcome to Delaware’ sign. Easiest highpoint ever.
From here we decided to visit the First State National Historic site, the only National Park Site in Delaware. This site is fairly spread out, highlighting several colonial sites and heritage areas across the state. It would have been interesting to visit some of the sites in downtown Wilmington, but even this far South, tourism doesn’t start until Memorial Day. We instead opted to visit the Brandywine Valley unit of the park.
Based on our research, we found that there was an extensive network of trails going along the river and came up with the idea to kayak down the river and then walk back to the car. We started at the Smith Bridge parking area located just South of the Smith Covered Bridge where we set up the kayak and paddled up river just a bit to get a view of the covered bridge. From there it was smooth sailing down to Thompson Bridge. The air was cool, and there were probably hundreds of barn swallows flitting across the river.
At Thompson Bridge we pulled out on the left bank of the river and stashed the kayak on the bank, and then started the walk back. Charlotte was very cooperative if not excited for the walk. There were a variety of purple and white wildflowers blooming along the way, and the whole area was very vibrant green.
With the kayak all packed up we made a brief stop at the Brandywine River State Park Visitor Center to grab the NPS cancellation stamps for the park. Our original plan was to do a second hike to visit the tri-point of PA/MD/DE but opted against it for Charlotte’s sake. We instead decided to drive around the tri-point and get a new county and a visit of Maryland for the year.
Our final stop for the day was at the Brandywine Battlefield State Historic Site in Pennsylvania. This stop was a bit of a bust as the park mostly focused on several older buildings used by General Washington during the battle and less about the battle. But there were two large cherry trees in full bloom that made the stop a bit worth it, plus it helped put more context into Valley Forge, which we would be visiting a lot more during the next few weeks in Pennsylvania.
