Traffic backs up on Route 13.
Hotels up and down the highway are packed.
The lines outside the restaurants are building.
Even for locals, crossing the street is a challenge.
It must be Dover on a NASCAR weekend.
Wrong.
Try Bridgeville during Apple Scrapple.
Or … Bridgeville during Punkin Chunkin.
Bridgeville?
Yes, Bridgeville, population 2,048, ranks among the festival capitals of the nation, with its two big events listed in “Top 100 Events in North America for 2012,” an annual guide published by the American Bus Association (ABA), an organization of motorcoach and tour operators.
“This is a significant honor,” said Linda Parkowski, state director of tourism. “It brings us national recognition, big event recognition, and much more exposure.”
“It’s a big deal for Bridgeville,” added Town Manager Merritt Burke, who couldn’t help but pun over the ABA recognition. “They’re a big driver when it comes to tourism.”
Other destinations listed in the guide include such nationally known events as the National Cherry Blossom Festival, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade in New York City, the Daytona 500 and the Kentucky Derby. Oh, a third Delaware attraction also made the list, Rehoboth’s Sea Witch Halloween and Fiddler’s Festival, scheduled this year for Oct. 28-30.
Bridgeville will be bursting at its seams Friday and Saturday for its 20th annual Apple Scrapple Festival, an event that draws 25,000 or more to the town. Numbers-wise, that’s just a warm-up for the Punkin Chunkin, held on the Wheatley Farm, about two miles southeast of town, on Nov. 4-6. Last year’s gourd games drew more than 100,000 and larger crowds are expected this year, says Frank Shade, the event’s director of media and promotions.
And next year — when the impact of the recognition is felt — well, that’s anyone’s guess.
“A lot of small towns struggle to create an event,” Burke said, referring to Apple Scrapple. “This community figured it out 20 years ago and it keeps getting better.”
With both events, he said, the credit goes not to the town but to the creators and organizers who developed the themes and built them into successes.
Apple Scrapple, celebrating the town’s agricultural heritage, features plenty of food, much of it made from the items in the festival’s name, plus a “ladies skillet toss,” the “mayor’s scrapple sling,” a car show, a couple of craft shows, lots of music and dancing in the streets.
Punkin Chunkin, Sussex County’s answer to the age-old question of what to do with all those unsold pumpkins the weekend after Halloween, combines physics, mechanics, music, fireworks, food and drink as competitors from all over the United States vie to see whose contraption can hurl a pumpkin the farthest. The current record, according to the Chunkin website, is 4,483.51 feet.
“Visitors want to enjoy the festivals as much as possible,” tourism director Parkowski said, but there’s a limit to how much scrapple one can eat and how long one can watch smashing pumpkins.
Need a break, or plan on staying in western Sussex another day? Parkowski has plenty of suggestions. Among them, lunch or dinner at Bridgeville’s iconic Jimmy’s Grille, hiking at Trap Pond and Killens Pond state parks, touring the area’s historic mansions, playing the slots or table games at the Harrington Raceway and Casino. And, if you’re coming from out of state, you can’t afford to pass up Delaware’s tax-free shopping.
If you’re a golfer, Shade adds, make time for a round at Heritage Shores Club.
At Jimmy’s Grille, which seats about 130, the pace is steady and the waits are seldom long, says general manager Erik Sweterlitsch. “It’s as crowded and as busy as Mother’s Day or Easter Sunday, but it’s a whole different atmosphere.” During the festivals, he says, visitors come to Jimmy’s for breakfast or dinner (or both) to “get one solid meal because they know they’ll be snacking during the day.”
At last year’s Punkin Chunkin, Shade said, Scott Thomas of Southern Delaware Tourism surveyed about 500 visitors on ticket lines and checked the license plates on 3,400 vehicles in the parking lot. Among the findings:
- More than half the visitors were staying overnight, mostly for two nights and some for three.
- Motorists drove to Bridgeville from Delaware and 36 other states, including Colorado, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, South Dakota and Nebraska.
With no hotels in Bridgeville, those visitors need places to stay. Some camp out on site, in RVs or tents (see, it is like Dover on a NASCAR weekend); others rent condos and hotel or motel rooms, often as far east as Rehoboth. Eight miles south in Seaford, the town’s five hotels, are filled every year, says Paula Gunson, executive director of the Greater Seaford Chamber of Commerce.
And, she adds, it’s a very busy weekend for every dining establishment in town, from the fast-food chains on Route 13, to Pizza King, the Seaford Eagle Diner and the upscale Bon Appetit.
“We love it,” she said. “Events like these put a terrific focus on the entire area.”
