Hope springs eternal along the coast

It's Easter time in Delaware's Cape Region.

It works out nicely that Maryland schools are closed the week before Easter and Delaware schools the week after. That two weeks of regional travel activity gives a welcome extended boost to the springtime economy.

Easter came relatively late this year. In that respect, the holiday of renewal and promise takes on even greater significance as the first beginning of the 2017 tourism season. First beginning because here, each new season comes with many milestones.

Easter marks the break of winter, and warm weather ahead which draws our visitors. Then there's Memorial Day weekend, when most of the seasonal businesses, including Rehoboth's Funland, roll into high gear.

Fourth of July weekend marks high tourist season. The run between that celebration and Labor Day weekend brings the nicest summer weather and the strongest day-tripper and renter crowds. Then comes the final festival and holiday run, and glorious fall weather, wrapping up the annual season.

It all reminds us how blessed we are to live and work and retire in a place geared to attract and share happiness with millions of annual visitors from throughout the mid-Atlantic region.

We can thank Mother Nature for making this sweet spot in the center of the planet's temperate zone so pleasant for human habitation. That and Delaware's good sense through the decades to preserve our beaches for the public figure significantly in a perennial industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

But what we do to take full advantage of our natural bounty also plays a large role in keeping that tourism industry thriving. That includes our restaurants, recreational businesses that enable and encourage outdoor activity, running and walking events, and hundreds of retail businesses that make shopping here such a hoot and add immeasurably to the vibrancy of our region.

So do more subtle but no less important efforts such as planting trees everywhere and making our Route 1 corridor attractive, and encouraging a hospitality culture of friendliness and helpfulness so visitors will want to return again and again.

It's wonderful to feel the optimism and promise of a new season unfolding.