There’s nothing like riding a fat-tired rental bike through a seaside pine forest to make you feel like a carefree kid. As my husband and I wended our way through Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware, I was too focused on the crunch of pine needles underbike and the occasional osprey sighting to worry about work, picking up my dry cleaning, or getting to the gym.

We had chosen the historic town of Lewes, Delaware, at the intersection of the Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, for an October weekend getaway. The idea was that it would be late enough in the year to avoid summer beach crowds, but early enough that we could still enjoy spending time outside. Our base would be the welcoming Dogfish Inn, a 1950s motel purchased by the local craft beer makers Dogfish Head in 2014 and renovated into a surf lodge filled with blond wood and midcentury-styled furniture.

Lewes was founded by Dutch settlers in 1631 as Zwaanendael, meaning “Swan Valley.” William Penn gave the town its current name in 1682, and it served as a maritime center from the late 1600s to the 1860s. The 1938 Lightship Overfalls, restored and docked in the Lewes-Rehoboth Canal, is the most popular symbol of Lewes’ seafaring history, and it’s open to the public for below and above-deck tours.

Canalfront Park, the home of the Overfalls, lies just a short walk away from the Dogfish Inn. Our circuitous stroll through the park and around Lewes’ Victorian house-filled historic district brought us to St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, founded in 1708. While the current church building dates from the 1850s, the graveyard surrounding it contains worn tombstones from the 1700s. A small, grass-and-stone walking labyrinth fits the cemetery’s contemplative atmosphere so well that we assumed it was old, but it was actually built in 2001.

Fortified by sandwiches at Notting Hill Coffee Roastery, we rented bikes from Lewes Cycle Sports and headed into the pine-filled park. We passed a few hikers, but we mostly had the place to ourselves. We could see why Cape Henlopen was a key military stronghold during the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War, and both world wars; the rolling park’s highest points offer sweeping, unobstructed ocean views. No enemy ship would be able to sneak in unseen here, except under the darkest cover of night: There’s simply no place to hide.

The salty air and 70-degree temperatures lured us down to the beach at Herring Point, still within the park, where we watched fishermen casting their reels and a couple of lone surfers braving the chilly Atlantic waters. We had plans for dinner later on at Dogfish Head Brewings & Eats in neighboring Rehoboth, but for now we made pillows out of our fleece jackets and lay on our backs in the soft, sun-warmed sand, wondering why it had taken us more than a decade of living in D.C. to visit Lewes.