Reading this week:
- The Mind of the African Strongman by Herman J. Cohen
- At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop
- US Policy Toward Africa by Herman J. Cohen
This past week my super amazing girlfriend and I went to New Bedford. We went there because we both wanted to get away for a bit, she likes Massachusetts, and I like boats, and conveniently New Bedford catered to all of these interests. We drove up there on a chilly winter morning, leaving New Haven to pass through Old Saybrook and Old Lyme before waving at New London and New-port until we finally arrived at New Bedford. That last sentence was meant to make fun of all the things in New England named uncreatively for other places, but at one point we were contemplating visiting a 12th-century castle in Taunton, so maybe the naming convention makes sense. Still, if I was a pilgrim everything in New England would be named Patville and Patricktown and Patford.
Upon arrival in New Bedford, we immediately got lunch. Then, having fortified ourselves, we proceeded quickly to Fort Rodman to enjoy the view. There’s a military museum that we wanted to visit, but it was mysteriously closed. Luckily, though, the views were nice, as you can see from the samples above. I enjoyed looking at the lighthouse and also the fort, and the trawlers that were motoring on by. We saw many dogs and a man playing rugby by himself. On the note of views, I can’t believe that anyone thinks that windmills are an eyesore. They are so cool. They spin and stuff and then make electricity. Maybe they could come in more creative paint schemes, like flame decals or something. The same goes with solar panels. I wouldn’t advocate cutting down trees to install ’em, but fields and fields of solar panels is an enticing view to me. Everyone should get on board.
Next, because Fort Rodman hadn’t killed quite enough time and we couldn’t check into our AirBnB until 4, we went on the New Bedford Harbor Walk. That’s not the only reason we went, we also went because we like walking places together and enjoying each other’s company, and the walk provides lovely views of the harbor. I was somewhat disappointed to discover you weren’t supposed to walk out on the very nice path shown in the above photo, but mollified to discover the feat of engineering this wall was. They also have these big ole gates that normally let cars through, but make it possible to just like, cut off the lower peninsula of the city, which I think gave the whole affair some Game of Thrones vibes. It was also very cold while we were walking, and as we set out a lady warned us about the dangers of tearing up and getting frostbite on our cheeks, so that was on our mind. We eventually hustled off the wall and managed to park at our AirBnB shortly before a brief but furious snowstorm hit. We settled in and had a lovely night after getting some seafood takeout.
The next morning we set out bright and early (well, like 9:45) for our full day of New Bedford adventuring. The first stop was the Seaflower sculpture, because of course we support public art. Also, importantly, it let me check off a thing on Atlas Obscura, which is almost as important. This was a fairly good trip for checking things off on Atlas Obscura, as our next stop was an oozing whale skeleton:
The whale skeleton was housed at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, which was really good! We spent a few hours there looking at stuff. They had the first gallery with the whale skeletons, which was neat (and another one later on), and then an art gallery with a bunch of art, only most of which was whaling-related, and then of course a bunch of galleries that showed you a bunch of stuff about whaling. They had clothing and boats and harpoons and stuff like that. I recommend it. One of their major claims to fame is what they bill as the “World’s Largest Ship Model:”
I guess this counts as a model instead of just like, a ship, because it is half the size of the ship they modelled it after. The overall impression is a ship for children. You can see me on the above right steering it from one end of the hall to the other. We didn’t quite make it, but maybe someday.
Man I uploaded more pictures of the place than I thought. One of the more interesting wings of the exhibit, at least as far as my super amazing girlfriend and I’s interests go, was their wing dedicated to the interactions between the whaling fleets as Asia. They had some super cool examples of Japanese whaling stuff, including a wide range of prints, which I was disappointed to find that the gift shop contained exactly zero reproductions of. They were very neat. The museum also of course boasts of the world’s largest collection of scrimshaw, which I have a particular fondness for out of an effort to make myself presidential. My super amazing girlfriend was very impressed by the swifts.
After leaving the museum and getting some lovely lunch, there wasn’t a whole lot else to actually do in New Bedford. This is largely the fault of COVID. But we spent the rest of a very lovely afternoon walking around and admiring the town, reading the various very informative signs and admiring the boats in the harbor. In the evening we had an expansive takeout dinner and then settled in for the night. That left us with our final morning in New Bedford. It dawned bright and clear and we took advantage of it by being lazy and hanging out until we had to check out of the AirBnB. Then we paid our respects to the Joshua Slocum memorial, which was important because Sailing Alone Around the World is a very good book and he was a cool guy (the memorial park is a lovely spot, too, you should check it out), oh and also for Atlas Obscura. Priorities.
Update: The museum tweeted me. I’ve never achieved this level of fame:
Pat in the World 
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