September 6 & 7, 2008

Saturday 6~~~Last night we had a down pour of rain, the aftermath of Hannah. When it rains here, it really rains, not the gentle rain we get in Oregon. It is a warm rain though and the humidity is high. Kent did the laundry and Sharon cleaned house and made frosted banana bars. We went out for Greek Pizza tonight and we came home and watched TV. It rained hard all evening, but the storm wasn't as bad as it could have been. Sunday 7~~~ We drove to New Bedford, Mass. what used to be "The Whaling Capital of the World" in1841. Today New Bedford is a city of nearly 100,000 people, has cobblestone streets, historic structures and a working water front, home port to one of America's leading fishing and scalloping fleets. Whaling for whale oil was a huge industry for many years and in the 1850's more whaling voyages sailed from New Bedford than from all of the world's ports combined. The "Under Ground Railroad"( neither a train or underground, but a network of people helping escaped slaves) was very active with slaves running away and heading north to freedom. The underground Railroad brought tens of thousands of southern slaves to the free northern states and Canada before the Civil War. New Bedford was one of the greatest asylums of the fugitives. It is estimated that 300 to 700 fugitives lived in New Bedford between 1840's and 1860 working as whalers or on the wharves. More than 20,00 are believed to have made their way to Canada. There is so much history here on so many topics. Next we drove to Providence, RI which is about 30 miles away from New Bedford. There we stopped at a National Park and drove around town and went by the Capital building, we thought it was very attractive and took a picture of it.