I was on a scallop boat. The young deckhand/engineer/jack of all trades was giving us a detailed explanation and guided tour of life on a scallop boat. Replete with information about the days where you can fish all you want outside restricted areas, the code of ethics that governs which of your competitors you can trust (think, the “codfather”), and what it feels like to be 20 hours out from shore with no cell connection and a questionable satellite phone. He hated, he said, to look at the red survival wetsuit that was laid out for display on the table in the dining area.

This was all part of the Working Waterfront Festival in New Bedford, Mass.  Ever since daughter A’s boyfriend N moved there I had been fascinated with the idea of this festival. And when a work obligation was rescheduled – and $100 roundtip tickets were available, fate conspired to make New Bedford next in the adventure roster.

It’s barely three hours from Orlando to Providence RI via JetBlue. And from there, it’s a quick 30 minute jaunt to New Bedford. So as not to defeat the purpose of our remarkably cheap plane tickets, we also rejected the expensive and not very interesting hotels, opting instead for a true Airbnb. Sylvia, our landlady, lives in half of a lovely, 1857 house. Her son, a Unitarian minister, lives in the other half. She couldn’t have been more gracious, the room was lovely, and despite a shared bathroom not for a moment did I feel we didn’t have a private space. $59 per night. This is the real Airbnb – a genuine bed ‘n breakfast.

Friday night was Portuguese food.  Turns out you should never have just one but at least two carbs. Rice and French fries. South Beach cuisine this wasn’t. The “stuffies”, stuffed quahog clams, added a bread course to the other carbs. The famed New Bedford scallops lived up to their name – and believe it or not, I had grilled quail.

We had more Portuguese food for breakfast, and topped it off with a visit to the Whaling Museum. The Working Waterfront festival followed. It was largely a local event – I haven’t even mentioned the booths advertising ball bearings or the cooking demonstrations. After, we took a jaunt to and a hike on the Audubon Allens Pond Park. Boggy on the inland side, wildflowers in between, and a classic New England coast. A and N wanted to make sure I explained this was the South Coast of Massachusetts- not to be confused with the Cape or points north. A local brewery visit followed, topped off by another classic New Bedford seafood dinner and a ritzy cocktail bar.

In between dinner and drinks we made our way to a local fort. It was completely fogged over. But of all things a Revolutionary War historical reenactment was going on. It felt like we’d wandered into a wannabe Twilight Zone episode.

Sunday involved more breakfast – this time at a Cape Verde restaurant, Izzy’s. New Bedford has a diverse immigrant population and many people from Cape Verde  – in Florida, we think of Cape Verde as where the hurricanes come from. A faculty basketball game for N and J at N’s school was next up, and the meantime A and I ventured off to explore Providence. The males in our party eventually met us there, and we did some further exploration before ending up in the Italian area at a really excellent restaurant whose name escapes me.

A highlight was the outdoor Sinatra concert we wandered into.

It was only a couple of quick hours back to Orlando. And then road construction meant it took half that time again to go the brief ten miles back to our house, for a midnight arrival. This was a totally unplanned and spur of the moment trip. I’d do it again tomorrow.