Now taking reservations: Canada to Cape Region, nonstop

After years of construction, the Route 1 southbound bridge at Route 16 is open to vehicular traffic. Among other things, that means someone can now drive from Canada to the Cape Region without hitting a single traffic light until they get to the Five Points intersection outside Lewes.

It’s not some astounding observation – the Gazette has recently published at least one letter to the editor saying as much – but I’ve been waiting to write that sentence for as long as construction on that overpass has been underway. 

There’s a U.S. Customs and Border Protection office in Holton, Maine, on the United States side of the border. According to Google, it’s 762 miles from that office in Holton to the Cape Gazette office, and it would take 11 hours and 50 minutes to complete the drive. A driver would hit a few toll booths and there would be slowdowns for road construction, but otherwise, it’s smooth sailing from Houlton International Airport to Surf Bagel.

That’s probably not the only route from Canada that would be traffic light-less, but it gets a little tricky west of Buffalo, N.Y., because the map app starts to have drivers cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge instead of going through northern Delaware, and there are a couple traffic lights on Route 404 in Maryland. However, I think if a person wanted to get crazy, they could drive all the way from Vancouver, Canada without hitting a stoplight. It would take driving to Philadelphia first and then heading south, but it could be done. Again according to Google, that trip is 3,047 miles and would take 45 hours.

Imagine driving all that way without stopping. Now I understand why visitors driving south on Route 1 in Sussex County are going so fast; they didn’t realize the Royal Farms in Milford was their last good chance to go to the bathroom before hitting the beaches.

Watch out for turtles 

Around this time every year, I like to include a little missive about watching out for turtles trying to cross the area’s roads. I was thinking about including it in this week’s column already, but I had a couple of now-is-the-time moments this week that cemented it.

The first moment was on my way to work Monday. I noticed a snapping turtle splayed out on its dinner-plate-sized shell on southbound side Route 1. It was near Shaffer’s Service, where the road dips as it crosses over the Red Mill Pond bridge. Later the same day when my wife asked if I had seen the turtle, I told her I had. She said she had seen it get hit on her way to work that morning. She had noticed it trying to cross Route 1, turned around and was going to try and save it with her “turtle-pushing shovel,” but it got hit before she could. She was disappointed, but I expressed my desire to not have her join the turtle lying on Route 1.

A couple of days later, my wife saw a small box turtle in our backyard. It’s not the first time we’ve seen one in our yard, just the first this year. We’re not sure where it’s coming from, but we both immediately thought it was the culprit eating the blueberry bush we planted this spring.

Anyway, watch out for turtles. Be safe if you’re the type to give them a helpful push, and make sure to push snapping turtles with a stick. I can guarantee my wife’s turtle-pushing shovel would have bite marks on it if she had gotten to the snapping turtle first.

Joke of the Week

According to a calendar I have hanging in my office that was published by the Delaware Department of Agriculture, Delaware Grown Week begins Sunday, May 18. It’s celebrated annually in Delaware the third full week of May. Farming’s no joke, but here’s one about it anyway. As always, send jokes to cflood@capegazette.com.

Q: Why did the manager fire the corn farmer?

A: Because he was sleeping on the cob.