Eastern Shore...or Brandywine Valley

When I was writing the latest Frommer's Maryland and Delaware, I discovered Delaware doesn't have many books or movies that use its lovely ocean beaches, picturesque small towns or enchanting Brandywine Valley as a backdrop.

Such a pity.

So here I am 5,000 words into Souvenir Shopping (there's got to be a better title), thinking the Eastern Shore is a wonderful place to put a story -- and in fact Chestertown is one of the locations in my last (still unpublished) novel -- but that I could have a lot of fun in places like Dover, New Castle, Wilmington, and Brandywine.

Colonial towns could be a constant back drop, starting with Annapolis, then Dover, and New Castle and oh the Hagley, such a pretty place on the banks of a babbling brook, well really the Brandywine River, even if the Hagley had a tendency to blow up back in its day. Hmmm. There could be something there.

So maybe I'll back off the Maryland locations -- I was thinking old standbys of Easton and St. Michaels and adding Cambridge because I always like Cambridge. Michener used them all in Chesapeake anyway. (Oh, if this was a story of that caliber.)

Maybe I'll turn my imagination to another of my favorite places on earth. The Brandywine Valley. I look forward to my visits to the Inn at Montchanin, Winterthur, the Hagley, Nemours mansion and Longwood Gardens. With stops, of course, at my favorite restaurants, too.

Perhaps I can spend my summer there this year. At least in m mind.