Matt's Homepage

Probably the best day yet.  After dropping our sister off for her last day of work, we took off to Lexington/Concord.  We saw battle green in Lexington, and then traveled Battle Road to Concord.  At Concord we saw the North Bridge – where Patriot troops opened fire on British regulars and then a mob battle all the way back to Boston took place.

The visitors center about half-way down the trail has a really excellent video presentation of how the events took place.  Lots of stuff I didn’t realize about how this historic event took place.  It presents a great timeline of events and people involved.

Also along the very hikable trail are great preserved scenes and locations from the battle.  At one of the taverns where skirmishes took place, they even have musket demonstrations from a really great and knowledgeable staff.

So far, the most amazing thing so far is how close everything is.  You can drive one end of the road to the other in just 30 minutes – but the events that took place there ranged over a whole 24 hour period.  I would highly recommend this whole area if you have a chance to see it – and learn amazing things about the birth of your country.

Finally, we stopped by Waldon pond and saw the site of Thoreau’s cabin. Good times.

Ran up to Cranes beach and hung out for a couple hours enjoying the sun and surf.  Beautiful beach owned originally by the plumbing magnate Crane.  We drove up to the house but it was closed for a private event.

On the way back, we stopped at Salem, MA – the site of the Salem witch trails.  Also the site of Nathanel Hawthorn’s home.  We stopped by the House of 7 Gables and his own home (which was moved next to the 7 gables house when the original site was slated for destruction).  Great tour and definitely worth seeing.

Arrived at Boston and it’s a bit warm and humid – something different than the usual Pac Northwest I’ve grown so accustom to.

Did an overnight red-eye then hit the ground running when my brother arrived a few hours later.  We went over to Harvard (or Havhad if you please) and toured around.  Got to get our picture in front of Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe.  Wandered around the campus a bit and saw the sights, stopped into the bookstores/shops nearby and generally had a good time.

We also ran down to MIT and also saw the Good News Garage – the home of the Cartalk guys.  Fabulous.