a.m. drove to New Bedford to see whaling museum there. On the way it began to rain. In New Bedford it took a few minutes to find a place to park our rig. Started to parallel park in two vacant spaces, but the man with the next parked car behind was so alarmed at the idea, I moved on. Did find a place only a block from the visitor center. Since I was there last (1960) the whole downtown area has become a National Historic Site. New Bedford was the #1 whaling port in the world in the period from about 1845 to 1890, and one of the wealthies cities in the world during that time. Evidence of that still shows. Also a major immigrant destination for Portuguese and Cape Verdeans and Azoreans, most of whom came to work the whaleships. We moved on to the New Bedford Whaling Museum, an old institution with a huge collection of whaling artifacts and a 1/2 size model of a whaleship. Fortunately it is all indoors, because by then it was raining with a will. Also of note in the museum is a huge collection of scrimshaw. The museum overall is a little bit of hodgepodge compared with new museums but all their displays are in good condition and the interpretive information is excellent. Spent about two hours there, and could have stayed much longer. When I was there in 1960 the tour guide was an old Indian man who had actually served as a crewman on a sailing whaleship. I remember his tales of his hard life did not make me wish I'd also been a whaler.
We moved on and followed the coast through Rhode Island to Mystic CT where we'll visit their seaport museum tomorrow. Raining buckets. The first really rainy day in a month; the forecast for tomorrow is not great but better.
No comments:
Post a Comment