Our chores still include another load of laundry and getting the oil changed in the Buick.  It actually did quite well during the entire trip and didn’t guzzle too much gasoline.  Gas prices in Roanoke are cheaper than anywhere!  We spent a great deal of time listening to Public Radio and I miss it now so will have to find a radio for our room.  One can learn a great deal listening to NPR or CNPR (Canadian National Public Radio.)  I thought they should have called it Canadian Public Radio so the initials would be CPR and would make for a great fund raising theme.  Or it would have confused everyone? 

  This email is about our annual visit to Fairhaven on our way to Dartmouth for our annual visit and traditional lobster dinner.  I should say "New England" lobster dinner since this year we added Point Pleasant Beach, NJ as a lobster dinner destination. 

Ru

Fairhaven and New Bedford Harbor

I grew up in New Bedford just across the Acushnet River from Fairhaven.  Maybe I was there twice during the first 50 years of my life.  Since then Randal and I seem to go every year as we travel between our friends in Dartmouth and our friends on Cape Cod during our annual “up north” road trips.  I’m not sure how we stumbled across the intersection of the Pumpernickel Restaurant and the Phoenix “stuff” shop, but like lemmings we return every year.  Sometimes we find “can’t live without” stuff at the Phoenix but this year we just toured around, though they did have a neat bag with the Red Sox logo; but it was just too small so I took a pass.  Next we made our usual stop at the West Marine on Pope’s Island just between Fairhaven and New Bedford where we bought a new fuel tank for the dinghy and a new, larger, not stinky canvas bag. (Our old one had seen way better days.)   Our final stop before heading on to Har’s and Dick’s place was the New Bedford Harbor to visit our friend in the Visitor Center whom we’d met several trips ago.  Alas, some things change and he wasn’t there.  But we were able to leave the Turkish souvenir we’d brought on the porch of his home before we left town.  (We’d missed him there too!)

Phoenix with Pumpernickel across the street and the blue library sign pointing down the street to the Millicent Library.  We used to scout out all of the libraries to use their Internet terminals.  Now we have our ACER travel computer, but still visit libraries for the wifi connection and just because it’s fun. 

Lunch at the Pumpernickel where my veggie omelet would have fed a family.   The woman in black and the red and black checked floor reminds me of an Edward Hopper painting.

After our huge lunch we needed to walk for a bit.  We’ve done longer tours in past years including searching for and finally finding the small monument to Joshua Slocum, the first man to do a solo navigation around the world.  He built his sloop in Fairhaven. When we were little, my sister and I took riding lessons at a stable on Slocum Rd. in Dartmouth but I don’t have any idea if it was named for Joshua Slocum.

Lots of red bricks and stone used in these lovely old buildings: at least old by American standards of old.

The Millicent Library with a sailing ship mosaic at the entrance.

New Bedford harbor filled with fishing boats.

I think the dome of the Whaling Museum is visible through the ship rigging on the right side of the photo.

New Bedford fishing industry

A painting of the Butler Flats Lighthouse located at the mouth of the Acushnet River.

   “Its days as a whaling center were long past, but New Bedford was still an important port in the late 1800s. It was the third largest manufacturing city in Massachusetts, and about 500,000 tons of shipping entered the port in 1890 alone. Butler Flats Light, built in 1898 for $34,000, replaced the old Clark’s Point Light, which had been active since 1804. The appropriation for the lighthouse at Butler Flats was secured largely through the efforts of Congressman Sturtevant Randall.

   Butler Flats Light was designed by F. Hopkinson Smith, also an artist and writer. Smith’s place in lighthouse history is secure largely due to his planning of Race Rock Light in Fisher’s Island Sound. Smith also built the foundation of the Statue of Liberty. ……….In September 1997 inmates from the Bristol County House of Correction went to work at Butler Flats Light. The inmates rewired the electrical system and did work on the tower’s walls, ceilings, floors and stairway.”

http://www.lighthouse.cc/butler/history.html

  Family folk lore, if I remember correctly, is that my father and his friends used to swim from shore to the lighthouse.

The SAULNIER BIKE TRAIL walking/biking path along Rodney French Boulevard and Clark’s Cove.  We’d walked toward Fort Tabor but this view is looking back towards New Bedford.  http://www.forttaber.org/history.shtml

Then it was off to visit our friends Harriet and Dick.  We’d all grown up in the same neighborhood so have known each other for close to 60 years!  But that’s the story for the next email.