A great day trip: Delmarva Discovery Center

It seems like a world away, but Pocomoke City, Md., along Route 13, is actually about one-and-a-half hours from most Cape Region locations. There you can find a real hidden gem, the Delmarva Discovery Center and Museum, located next to the Pocomoke River.

The center has a great collection showing the early history of Delmarva – complete with a Native American village – and an even better collection of the history of fishing, shipping and boat building. It also highlights the natural areas of Delmarva including a cypress swamp with a beaver’s den.

What makes the center such a great destination is what it offers children. There is an abundance of hands-on activities, including oyster tonging, feeling the wind in a catboat, art projects, a touch tank filled with horseshoe crabs and welks and scavenger hunts for all ages.

And the stars of the center are Mac and Tuck, two river otters who were saved from a dubious future when they were caught sneaking into a Louisiana crayfish farm and helping themselves. Although we missed the noon feeding show, the staff was good enough to give a special show with the otters playing with and eating ice dumped into their large aquarium home. The otters also have a large “playroom” that connects to the aquarium complete with slides and pools.

Besides the otters, my grandchildren loved the the life-size steamship they could climb on, steer and blow its steam whistle. It was hard to pull them away from it.

On the way to the center, you pass a turn off for Crisfield, which is the port for transport to Tangier and Smith islands. The two islands are on my bucket list that will be completed this year.

The center is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. Go to delmarvadiscoverycenter.org for more information,