Delmarva Review
A white crab shack with its screen door half open and a porch bulb lit, beside an empty two-lane road and a tidal creek at dusk

Towns, water, roads and seasons on the Delmarva Peninsula.

Delmarva Review

A long line of eastbound cars with roof boxes on a straight divided highway through flat cornfields on a hazy summer afternoon

Route 50 on a Summer Friday

The road to the ocean beaches crosses the Bay Bridge and then runs more than a hundred miles of farm country. On a July Friday it can take the better part of a day.

Behind the Screen Door

A crab house on the Eastern Shore is usually a plain room with brown paper on the tables. What happens there on a summer evening is about as close as the peninsula gets to a shared ritual.

Two Lanes at Dusk

The back roads of the lower Shore run between ditches and fields with no shoulder at all. In the hour after sunset they belong to the deer.

Ferries and Drawbridges

On a peninsula cut by rivers and creeks, some of the roads still stop at the water and wait.

Sharing Route 13

The main road down the spine of the peninsula is also a farm road, a truck route and a commuter road. At harvest, all three happen at once.

The Off-Season

In February the beach towns empty out. What is left is the shape of the place.