Cape Henlopen Beach on the Delaware Shore

Cape Henlopen, a Delaware state park, is just a two and a half hour drive from DC ... well, if you don't hit heavy traffic on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which you can easily avoid by oversleeping, then taking forever to leave your apartment.

It's a natural beach with plenty of wildlife. We saw a superpod of dolphins (dozens of them) swimming along the shore and lots of other marine life. Getting into Cape Henlopen State Park costs eight dollars if you don't life in Delaware. If you want to camp there, you need a reservation weeks in advance.

The park also features some hiking trails. I don't know how good they are, because we only got fifty yards -- if that -- down the trail before being ambushed by swarms of biting flies, unidentified giant insects, and chiggers (don't ask).

This photo is of a disused jetty on the beach, leftover from the military base that was at Cape Henlopen until the 1950s.