A Slice of Life
Bill Lites
When I arrived at the Providence station, I was surprised to see several security personnel (including a guard dog) milling around in the lobby. It made me wonder if there was a real security problem or what? I discovered later that they must have been at a shift change, as they soon all seemed to melt into the crowd, and I didn’t even see any homeless people in the station. I called the rental car company for a ride to get my car and was told to wait outside the “Downtown” exit for him. While I was waiting, one of the first persons I saw come out of the station was an attractive “Hooker” dressed in a tight sweater, skin tight leather pants, calf-length high heel boots and a Lady Star style leather cap. She really got the attention of a few convention men there waiting there for their rides.
After picking up my rental car, I headed east on I-195 to visit the New Bedford Whaling Museum. I couldn’t believe it when the clerk at the museum asked me where I was from and I said, “You probable have never heard of Titusville, FL.” And he said, “Yes I have, I’m from Orlando.” And I was thinking “What a small world we live in.” The whaling museum was very interesting, with five different full-size whale skeleton displays and a history of the American whaling industry from its earliest times. They even have a complete large-size whaling ship model of the “Lagoda” on display inside one of the galleries that you can go aboard and explore how life must have been sailing on one of those early whaling ships.
Then it was on east to the Pilgrim Monument in Providencetown, MA located on the northern tip of Cape Cod. On the way I passed thru towns with some of the most unusual names, such as Sandwich, Mashpee and Barnstable. I wouldn’t even begin to try to pronounce those names correctly. The 252 foot high Pilgrim Monument was erected in 1910 to commemorate the first landfall of the Pilgrims in 1620 and the location of their signing of the Mayflower Compact, which was the first governing document of the Plymouth colony. It was an impressive structure to say the least.
On the way back to the motel in West Yarmouth, MA I stopped for dinner at the “Moby Dick’s Seafood Restaurant” in Wellfleet, MA. Advertising to serve some of the freshest seafood in the Cape Cod area, and taking the New England clam shack to a new level, they are also uniquely a BYOB restaurant. They served me some of the best fish and chips I have ever had. What a treat after a long day in the air and on the road.
Early the next day I headed north to Plymouth, MA to visit the Pilgrim Memorial State Park, which is the site of the first Pilgrim Colony, and to see the famous “Plymouth Rock” and the “Mayflower II” ship. Interestingly, there is actually no historical mention of the Pilgrims “landing on a rock at Plymouth” until 1715. That’s when the rock first appeared in a Plymouth town boundary record as “the great rock.” And, it wasn’t until 1741 that the first written mention of the Pilgrims landing on a rock showed up.
The story goes that a 94 year-old church elder, Thomas Faunce, claimed he knew the precise boulder the Pilgrims first stepped on when they landed in the new world. I’m sure you would find the Googled history of “Plymouth Rock” as interesting as I did. I didn’t go aboard the Mayflower II because I had planned a full day of exploring Old Boston and the Boston Inner Harbor, and needed to be on my way
—–To Be Continued—–
Tags: #amblogging, American whaling industry, “Moby Dick’s Seafood Restaurant, Cape Cod., Christian bloggers, MA, Mayflower Compact, New Bedford Whaling Museum., Pilgram Monument, Pilgrim Monument in Providencetown, Travel, Travel Series
Old Things R New 