This past weekend I flew to Providence, RI to second shoot a wedding with Anna Sawin. I decided to make it a long weekend to see some local sights. Anna made a wonderful itinerary for us! On Friday we went to Mystic Seaport. This is a re-created seaport village on the scale of a Williamsburg (for those who have been). All the homes and storefronts are original and were brought in from different places and restored. There were countless activities to do and demonstrations going on! You could literally spend all day here. They have boats you may rent as well and take your own harbor tour! This weekend there was a wooden boat show… we were a day early but we could start to see all the majestic boats making their way in.
The Museum also hosts several day camps throughout the summer. Here are the Conrand Sailing Campers.
The village was abundant in flowers! Anna was telling me about their zoo garden (not pictured)… all of the flowers have animal names like Canna ‘Bengal Tiger,’ Turtlehead, Spider Flower, Goat’s beard…
There were lots of wood patterns to capture…
One of my favorite parts was the Tug boat museum. I only say this because my friend Mark works on a tug boat. It was neat to see what he probably sees every day. Again, the museum made it very interactive. Inside they had many hands on activities such as a large interactive tug boat with a computer gaming vizualizer that’s even used to train tug boat captains! Outside they offered anyone a chance to be a captain themselves and control a little tug in the wading pool. The staff at the museum are very talented! They built these tugs themselves!
The highlight of the museum was the active shipyard. This is the only one of it’s kind left… a wooden whaling boat! It’s massive!!!! You can go up and inside too! When you are on the deck looking out of the windows it’s breathtaking. It made me think of Noah’s ark. Can you picture it too?
They are working to restore the boat, which requires hard, very dense wood like you would find in 200+ year old live oaks. When Katrina brought down a lot of these trees it was the perfect solution to recycle to a useful project such as this. When South Carolinians found out about where Katrina’s fallen oaks were going they got on board too! Many families had saved their oaks from Hugo and couldn’t part with them because of the memories they sparked. Interesting enough they now have enough wood to finish the project because of a discovery of their own!!! They had forgotten that 200-year-old oak logs were buried in salt water for preservations and just so happened to find them again when a construction project was underway a few towns away. When you are walking through the lumberyard you wouldn’t realize the significance of this pile of wood. I took close up shots (bottom three photos) where you can see how 200 years ago (same time as when the whaling boat was built) the loggers used axes to form the logs. You can see the chiseled and wavy texture that the axes created. Being able to touch something with such history was incredible!! Even when they say they were cut 200 years ago… that doesn’t account how old the tree even was to be that massive! Anna Sawin is not only a talented photographer but also an amazing writer for Mystic Seaport. She is going to be doing a feature in the near future on the full history of this project. I can’t wait to learn more.
I was also privileged to go to a “local” beach. Anna said most are encouraged to go to the public beaches but she showed me this gem! Another beach goer pointed out the ER character Abby Lockhart or Maura Tierney. No, I didn’t take a picture. It was a foggy day but still beautiful.
Here is the Ocean House!! Steeped in history… it’s one of those hotels you’d be lucky enough to stay in at least once!! (Like The Grand at Mackinac Island) Wow. Anna was telling me that the Hurricane of 1938 destroyed every hotel except the Ocean House. However, because of fire codes and safety concerns the hotel was closed in 2003 and rebuilt by 2005 to it’s grandeur replica!
So that pretty much sums up my free time last weekend!! I did miss a few highlights on camera… The evening I arrived we had a delightful meal on the water in downtown Stonington. Beautiful seaside town! This is only 1 mile from her house…. so she could walk/bike to the beach! I actually did do some more beach time Sunday morning before my flight… I also missed taking shots Sunday of our amazing lunch in a RI square that was like Europe. Cobblestone streets, court fountain, outside eating with shaded umbrellas… we had some yummy Italian. Then we took a brief walk (100 ft) to an amazing bakery for hot tea and a slice of gourmet cake! (Coconut Dream for me and Chocolate Mousse for Anna). Sorry no pictures!! But what I did capture that I will share for all of you is a unique local thing??? Outside showers anyone???
I’ve seen these on beach vacations… but they are rarely enclosed on all sides and NEVER have hot water. They are just to rinse the sand off of you. But here is a fully equipped outside shower the family uses all of the time. HOT water too!! I really enjoyed this! Sun beating down on my head and watching the birds and the bees. Anna has quite a garden to be proud of too. Thank you so much Anna for a wonderful weekend… also all your efforts to really make a interesting itinerary for us! I had a WONDERFUL time!!