Saturday, the COG and I spent the day with the Son of... to celebrate my birthday. We went to the New Bedford Whaling National Park. New Bedford was the biggest whaling port in the nation during the 19th century and, for a time, it was the richest city in America, because of the whale oil. The old part of town has been wonderfully restored, cobbled streets and beautiful old buildings. We walked around for a while, had some lunch and then went to the Whaling Museum.
It was a nice little museum, bigger than we expected, and very sympathetic to the whale. There was a lot of information about whales, as well as lots of exhibits about the whalers and the history of whaling.
There were displays of beautiful things made of scrimshaw - pie crimpers, niddy noddys like the one shown here, boxes and baskets etc. The one I show here is a knitting basket made of whale bone with whale bone knitting needles. The collection of objects is truly amazing.
From New Bedford we went to a nearby winery - Westport Rivers Winery and did a wine tasting. They specialize in sparkling and white wines, (too much winter for reds) and they are really nice wines. In our effort to be locavores, we purchased several bottles.
Then, back to Falmouth on the Cape for a lovely dinner at The Glass Onion. This was a really special meal. Afterwards, we dropped the Son of back at his place in Wood's Hole and drove home.
A really great day!
2 comments:
Fascinating. And I know we aren't supposed to like whale bone things, but they are so beautiful, in such functional items.
You should have seen the pie crimpers, unfortunately my picture was too blurred to use, but they were so pretty.
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