Day 5: John Heinz NWR to Bartram's Garden

 

Saturday, March 22

The gates to Bartram's Garden are closed when we arrive at 8:00 am, so we park in an adjacent lot, which looks like it belongs to an abandoned housing project.  A few cars scattered here and there, but mostly empty.  No signs say "don't park here."  Looks okay to Rene, although I'm not one-hundred percent convinced.

The Uber driver arrives a few minutes later, and we crawl in the back of his small car.  "Do you think it's okay if we leave our car here?" I ask.  He studies me in the rear view mirror for a second, and then says, "Do you know where you are?".   

"Yes, of course.  We're right next to Bartram's Garden."

He studies me in the rear view mirror again.  "No, do you know where you are?" 

Okay, trick question, apparently.  "Not sure what you mean."

"Do you know where you are... this is a very bad neighborhood."

Ah, okay. We explain what we're doing there, that we're following the East Coast Greenway, which passes right through this area.  He relaxes his gaze and becomes interested in learning more.  He says the car will be fine (phew!), and we chat amicably for the entire ride to our starting point at the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum.  He is shocked to hear tell of our adventures on foot and bike, as if he never imagined anyone doing something like that.  We learn that the sounds of gunshots and midnight yelling are normal to him, but the idea of being out in the quiet of nature is terrifying. "Fascinating," I'm thinking to myself, in my inner Spock voice.   I couldn't help casting the occasional surreptitious glance up and down various neighborhood streets as we passed through.

The first mile or two in the wildlife refuge is along a gravel road adjacent to I-95.  You can tell you're walking by a nice marsh, but really can't see much of interest, and the highway noise is intrusive.  Eventually you peel off along a path into the middle of the refuge, and the views improve dramatically.   Birds are everywhere, and the trails are busy with walkers, birders and photographers.  We paused for a bit to admire a few tundra swans practicing take-offs and landings, and a couple of mute swans preening for their audience.  

After hiking through four miles of wetlands, you pop out into the surrounding neighborhood.  It all seemed fine to us as we ambled down streets lined with tidy townhomes for another mile or so, but eventually things started to look a little rougher, and our driver's words rang in my ears. My sentiments are a little difficult to convey, but I started feeling like this "privileged guy" who really had no right to be there.  Not that I was worried about anything bad happening - especially on a Saturday morning with few people out and about - but that I was intruding on somebody else's space.   So we decided to abandon the official Greenway route, which wandered around trying to stay close to any park it could find, and walk the main road directly back to our car, shaving off two miles (main roads seemed less intrusive to me). There was the occasional, imposing, historic building with interesting architecture to admire, one of which we were convinced had been converted to a jail, until we realized it was a middle school - a rather depressing thought. On the other hand, we ambled by many small shops that suggested a diverse set of immigrants had established their first toe-hold on the American dream. I can imagine this same gritty vibe played out on a many a street in New York City back in the days of mass immigration (and probably still does today).  Overall, it was an uneventful walk back to the gardens where our car awaited.    

Bartram's Garden was fascinating.  John Bartram is well known among natural history buffs as an early American naturalist who collected and described many New-World species, partly in service to the king, before the revolution.  The grounds of his estate along the Schuylkill River hosted many dignitaries back in the day, in the likes of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.  We enjoyed reading all the informative signs and walking through the grounds.  

Next up: The walk across Philly proper.

Today's Miles: 8.3

Cumulative Miles: 49.1

Bird of the Day:  First place goes to the trumpeter swans and their comical running take-offs.  Second place goes to a black vulture doing his best wind vane impression atop a chimney.

 

 

 

Bonus Points if You Spot the Tundra Swan

 

 

 

 

Day 4: Alapocas State Park to Claymont, DE

 

Monday, March 10, 2025

Today we're filling in the section we had jumped over, walking from Alapocas State Park (Blue Bell Barn) to Claymont.  There is no shortage of actual greenway here - the first five or six miles is a walk I'd recommend to anyone, passing through woodlands, along tumbling streams, and next to fine neighborhoods, with the caveat that you're close enough to I-95 to pick up traffic noise on occasion.  The second half of the walk is along busy roads, but we made the executive decision to walk along Business Route 13, which has nice sidewalks, rather than the actual ECG route on Governor Printz Boulevard, which does not. 

In what is starting to feel oddly coincidental, today's Lyft driver was from... New York City.  Well, technically he was from the Dominican Republic, but came to Delaware after living in Brooklyn, so that counts.  Other than that, and the fact that we talked so much he missed our turn-off, it was a quiet day with no stories to relate, and just a few photos to show.

Today's Miles: 8.0

Cumulative Miles: 40.8

Bird of the Day:  American Robin.  They were out in spades on this nice warm, spring-like day.

 

Day 3: Claymont, DE to Essington, PA

 

Sunday, March  9, 2025

 It doesn't take a great deal of imagination to understand just how difficult of a task it would be to map out a continuous walkable/bikeable path from the tip of Florida to the Canadian border in Maine, passing through the largest urban areas on the eastern seaboard.  The folks at the East Coast Greenway have done a fantastic job of it, but inevitably there will be sections where the best they can do is simply get you from Point A to Point B along major roads, which favor biking over walking.   Today's amble, from Claymont, DE to Essington, PA (just south of the Philadelphia International Airport), is a prime example.  This section is not a "greenway" by any stretch of the imagination - it is an urban corridor of fast traffic, heavy industry, tough living, and the historic echoes of early 20th century prosperity.  I am not, however, complaining in the least.  This is what we signed up for: to walk from Delaware to New York, and experience all the varied textures along the way.  And "grit" is definitely a texture. Note that we walked this section slightly out of order, jumping ahead so we could get through it on a Sunday morning, when the traffic would be at its lightest.  

We drove the 35 minutes or so from our house to the Clarion Hotel south of the airport, and the friendly folks at the desk had no problem letting us park the car for the day.  Our Lyft driver shows up right out of central casting from NYC: heavy accent, NY cap on backwards, sequined black jacket, blue jeans, converse, rosary hanging from the rear view mirror.  I dunno, it just sort of felt... spot on.  We shuttled to our starting point at the Food Lion grocery store in Claymont, and after the all-important  check to make sure we're walking in the correct direction, set off on our adventure on Route 13.  

In a mile or so you leave Delaware behind and cross over into Pennsylvania, entering the Marcus Hook Industrial Complex, where you get to see how the chemical sausage of our modern lives is made. It would be helpful to have some modicum of engineering knowledge to truly appreciate this section, but we were left to simply marvel at the sheer volume of metal piping going every which way, huffing and chuffing and spurting out the occasional blast of steam. Marcus Hook, the town, was interesting in itself. Former home of the American Viscose Corporation, whose claim to fame was being the first to manufacture artificial silk in the US, the largest maker of rayon, and the largest supplier of parachutes to the WWII war effort.  Their other claim to fame, aside from being defunct (of course), was the construction of  a very interesting "industrial village" for their workers, still preserved as rows of attractive homes arcing around a central green. 

Next stop up the road is the much maligned city of Chester, PA.  I'll admit it's tough to sugar coat this stretch, but I'll toss out a few sprinkles for you.  The greenway takes you right through the Philadelphia Union (professional) soccer complex, which was a beehive of activity on this day.  We stopped to chat with a friendly stadium employee and take photos of their "Jolly Ben" mural (as in Ben Franklin meets Jolly Rodger).   

Just the other side of the complex you get a brief, but picturesque walk along the banks of the Delaware River, and then you're back onto the main road. That pile of construction debris jumbled across the sidewalk up ahead?  That's a cleverly camouflaged Old Swedish Burial Ground with a historic marker and monument dedicated to John Morton, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.  Here's hoping that whatever was going on there was a work in progress, but it didn't exactly look like it.

Next stop on our tour is the glorious Harrah's Casino, curiously situated immediately next door to the Chester State Correctional Institution.  I'm not sure which is more depressing. We ducked into the Casino for a brief sit down and snack, but didn't stay long, since their ventilation system struggled to meet the goals of the "This Part of the Casino is Non-Smoking" regulation. I bet you $5 we were the first people to ever thru-hike that casino.

 As you leave the casino area, you're now getting close to the airport, and walking past the Boeing rotocraft facilities.  Not much to see but some very large, modern buildings and tidy grounds (all of which is a nice change), but there is the occasional "I wonder what the heck that is?" structure to ponder. If you're ever in the area, just up the road is Pho Philly, a terrific Vietnamese restaurant where we had lunch and celebrated another section completed.

 Today's Mileage:  10.8

Cumulative Mileage:  32.8

Bird of the Day: A great horned owl I stared at for a good ten minutes until I decided it was a decoy (the fact that there were three others also sitting on nearby rooftops did not dawn on me).  Second place goes to a herd of ring-billed gulls doing their collective wind vane imitations in a parking lot (there was a stiff, chilly wind blowing all day, thankfully at our back). 

 

 

Day 2: Old New Castle to Wilmingrton, DE

 

Wednesday, February 26, 2025

 The Delaware winter eased off a bit, so we took advantage of the brief warm spell to walk our second section, from Old New Castle to Alapocas State Park, just the other side of Wilmington.  We know this section quite well, having hiked and biked it many times, but this is the first time we've done the entire section in one go, on foot.  The miles ticked off quickly and uneventfully, and we were done before we knew it.  With no stories to tell, I'll  have to settle for a dry review of the sights one can see along the way, post a few pics, and call it a day.

Most of the path from New Castle to Wilmington is on the Jack A. Markell Trail ("The JAM", as it's locally known), which is a nice, paved recreational greenway that passes by such notable attractions as the Delaware Women's Correctional Facility, the Delaware Potter's Graveyard, the WM Delaware Recyclable Products, Inc. Landfill, and the Russell Peterson Wildlife Refuge on the Christina River.  As an added bonus,  you get to go through these cool tunnels under I-295 and I-495.  I am not making jokes here - all these things are interesting, and the trail is one of our favorite things to do.  The potter's graveyard, I want to add, is a very touching experience if you stop to reflect for a few minutes.

You enter Wilmington on the Christina River waterfront, which gives you picturesque views of the city, and then pass through downtown on Market Street.  Here you'll find varied and interesting architecture, historical markers, and the all-important restaurant and bar scene.  We opted for sushi and pizza and pastries.  Hey, I mean, when you can't decide... go for it.  "We'll walk it off," is our motto under these trying circumstances.

 On the other side of Wilmington, you head up the Brandywine River into Alapocas State Park, where you find yourself leaving the coastal plain and climbing up onto the Appalachian Piedmont.  This is the home of Wilmington's famous "Blue Rocks", which is a local gneiss that has a striking blue color when seen on a fresh surface.  However, what you'll be seeing as you walk past is weathered rock, which is dark gray, but has a bluish tint if you squint your eyes just right and convince yourself, or do some photo manipulation.  That said, the rocks in Alapocas form some impressive and rather surprising outcrops that are popular with local climbers, and prop up a muscular ridge that you have to climb to get out of the Brandywine valley. The East Coast Greenway has a flag on their map in this section - intended for bicyclists - that says "Caution: Steep Grades".  This is the highest point on the entire route from Delaware to New York City, topping out at somewhere around 300 feet in elevation (no snickering!).  It's all downhill from here.

Today's Mileage:  11.8

Cumulative Mileage:  22.0

Bird of the Day: A super friendly downy woodpecker who hung out with us, mere feet away, as we took a break on the climb out of the Brandywine.

 

 

 

Potter's Field with Women's Prison in BG.