

If Delaware has a vacation epicenter, it’s Rehoboth Beach. It’s clean, it’s close to home.” (She’s from Smyrna, about 50 miles north.) “It’s not New Jersey, where you get rude teenagers.

“It’s not like other places,” Gomes says of Rehoboth, the beach-lover’s haven where she and a dozen swim-suited and flip-flopped family members and friends were spending a day. Maybe a third, according to Mariela Gomes: It ain’t Jersey. For all its contributions to American society-it was the first state to ratify the Constitution, it was the site of a pivotal event in rock ‘n’ roll history, and it’s the proud birthplace of both nylon and Valerie Bertinelli-Delaware these days is known mostly for two things: beaches and tax-free shopping.
