Blue Goose ~ Day 85

August 24, 2014 ~ Wareham, MA to Fall River, MA

It was Sunday and basically I fussed on my laptop most of the day...first at a McDonalds where I sat next to a table of retired local men. A woman joined them and somehow the conversation got around to whether or not they had seen Slum Dog Millionaire, which was interesting, both for the fact that the woman had seen this movie and her take on it and for the fact that most of the men hadn't heard of it and were passively listening to her and probably wanting to get back to weather talk.

I moved on to a Starbuck's in a Target in Dartmouth, MA. I was trying to get photos of Opal's Cottage online, editing them, checking out Smug Mug, Picasa, Snapfish... It was frustrating as the connection wasn't optimal for dealing with over 100 photos...or who knows what.

There was a shady Walmart lot across the street but there were also No Overnight Parking signs all over. When I asked, the manager was apologetic, saying it was the town's ordinance, not Walmart's and that I would probably be OK, and on and on...but "if they come and ask you to leave, just do it....."

I thought about it and continued to Fall River, MA, where the Walmart area seemed sketchy to me so I moved to a 24-hour McDonald's and thought how this was a completely insane idea....sleeping in parking lots. I wasn't bothered but slept fitfully and fully dressed.

The best part of the day was the Katie and Austin wedding reports and photos...so thanks to all who sent them.

Oops, I forgot the really best part of the day for me (not that the wedding news wasn't great also).

The waitress last night wondered if I would be going to the New Bedford Whaling Museum, This has always been on my radar but, in truth, an insignificant blip, so I was glad she mentioned it. I went and loved it...

First of all, it was Sunday and I could park for free right across from the museum with lazy warm sunshine and the first dried and curling leaves of fall drifting down on the old cobblestones. And, being Sunday morning, there were few people....none of the congestion of a busy weekday.

The museum was elegant, beautifully designed, full of exhibits in perfect presentations. There were four whale skeletons, including a right whale mother and her 10-month-old fetus. The mother had been mortally wounded after being struck by a ship propeller.

WWW.WHALINGMUSEUM.ORG

Reyna is a 49 foot (14.9m), 15-year old, female North Atlantic Right Whale. She was ten months pregnant with her first calf when she was accidentally struck and killed off the coast of Virginia, in Chesapeake Bay. She washed ashore a week later along North Carolina's Outer Banks. Her name, which is based on the Spanish word for queen, was given to her in 2009 by New Bedford fifth grader Ryleigh Beaulieu.

There was also a sperm whale which had washed up on a Nantucket beach in 2002. The cause of its death has never been precisely defined.  One of the steps in preparing skeletons is to place the bones in horse and elephant manure to clean the soft tissue and leach the oil. The Nantucket whale was necropsied at the New Bedford landfill and subsequently "the skeletal assembly was done in full view of the museum visitors." 

New Bedford Whaling Museum - New Bedford - MA

I could describe in detail all the wonderful displays, information, photos and exhibits about whales and the people involved in that industry (scrimshaw, blown glass from New Bedford, weapons used in killing whales, prints, the ethnicity of whalers, the hazards of the sea for whales, with the very sobering statistic that 70% of right whales show some degree of entanglement in man-made debris...),
but here are a few photos instead. Think about stopping at this museum if you are ever in southeastern Massachusetts (even with kids). It was awesome!

Hmmm....since I took the inside photos with an iPhone, for some reason I can't access them for this blog but will add later if I figure it out.