13 Things You've Grown To Undeniably Hate If You're From Delaware
By Katy|Updated on April 22, 2020(Originally published April 07, 2020)
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Katy
Author
Katy is a life-long Delaware resident who grew up on a small grain farm and spent her summers enjoying time at the beach. A full time public relations professional by day and a content specialist with OIYS at night, Katy loves sharing her love of her home state with fellow Delawareans and others. Loves: local food, dachshunds, horseshoe crabs, hiking, farmers markets, bourbon.
Delawareans are proud to be from our tiny state, but it isn’t always sunshine and rainbows here on the Delmarva Peninsula. While there are a lot of great reasons to live here, if you grew up in Delaware, chances are you’ve dealt with these common annoyances enough to make you regret sticking around occasionally.
If you are trying to drive south in Delaware from about May to September, plan on an extra hour or so. The weekends - particularly Friday night and Saturday morning - can be awful! There aren't a lot of roads that enter our coastal towns, so cars back up for miles and miles.
The Christiana Mall is a great place to pick up pretty much anything you could want - there are dozens of stores and it's a one-stop shop for most of our errands. During the holiday season, though it turns into a madhouse. Shoppers from around the region flock to Delaware to take advantage of tax-free shopping, and locals hit up their favorite stores to check gifts off their lists. While it's great for the local economy, it's terrible for those of us who hate crowds.
April is one of the most colorful months in the First State! If you love the colors yellow and green, you're in for a treat. Once spring weather kicks in, pollen can be found coating pretty much everything you see. Pollen season makes most of us miserable to some extent, even if we don't have allergies. Between the sniffing, sneezing, and wadded up tissues, we have to wash the car all the time to take off the yellow sheen.
When is there ever NOT construction happening on the Delaware stretch of I-95? Some people think the Delaware highway signs are actually orange, and I'd believe it.
Anyone who lives in a beach town can tell you that tourists can make the summer months miserable. Of course, they also bring in millions of dollars of revenue and help keep our taxes lower than low, so it's a tradeoff. Still, we could really use fewer people feeding the seagulls and taking up short-term parking spaces.
Tons of great things happen in the state of Delaware, and some not-so-great things too. But it seems like the only time we get any national media attention is when a president, a vice president, or someone who wants to be one or the other visits.
It seems like all too frequently, a new housing development pops up in the middle of an old farm field. Plenty of us moved here because we love the idea of living in a rural area, but the spread of development and commercialization can be annoying. After all, we grew in up Delaware years ago before the chain restaurants and stores came in and took over, and we liked it that way!
Winter seems to turn Delaware's roads into an asphalt version of Swiss cheese. Most of the time the potholes are just filled up with tar and chip, basically slapping a band-aid over a gaping wound. Anyone who grew up in Delaware has certainly learned to change a tire after hitting one of these gaping holes a little too hard.
Sometimes knowing a lot of people in this small state is a great thing, and sometimes it's like one big high school. If you don't know what you're up to, ask someone else; they've probably heard something. Why can't people just keep to themselves?
You know them before you even see their plates - they're the ones who tailgate us because we're 'only' doing ten over the speed limit, the ones who honk at tractors and farm vehicles on the road, and the ones who zip in and out of traffic like maniacs. How 'bout they all go home?
DART buses and the Amtrak train cutting through a sliver of the state just don't cut it sometimes. What we wouldn't give for some decent public transportation...even just a single train line up and down the state would alleviate so much traffic and help people get around from town to town.
Sure the activities in Delaware are great for the economy and great for the people who enjoy huge music festivals and racing events. But for those of us just trying to get around town in June, it's a nightmare. Any other time of year, our capital is a great place to spend a relaxing day... so we can't complain too much, right?
When you grow up in Delaware and travel anywhere else, you'll inevitably hear someone say "dela-WHERE?" like they're the most clever person you've ever met. Try to keep the eye-rolling to a minimum and enjoy the fact that they're clearly missing out on an incredible and underrated state.
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grew up in Delaware
Kim Magaraci|April 22, 2020
What are the weirdest things about Delaware?
Delaware is a strange state, and there's a lot that people don't realize about our hidden wonder. Did you know that while Delaware is right in the heart of the Northeast Megalopolis, it's one of the best states for agriculture? In fact, there are 300 chickens per person in the First State! Delaware is also known for being a state closely tied into the DuPont family empire, and our beaches are known as the Nation's summer capital.
What are the best small towns in Delaware?
Every where you look, you'll find a charming small town! Anyone who grew up in Delaware has their own favorite, but some of the more popular little towns include Bethany Beach, Laurel, Odessa, and Bowers Beach.
What is Delaware known for?
Delaware is known for farm fresh ice cream, crab cakes, world-class beaches, and some of the most beautiful gardens in the country. There's so much packed into such a small state - no wonder our slogan is "endless discoveries".
