Boston Trip - Part Three

On Saturday we finally made use of the car we had rented, as we had decided to do some exploring outside of Boston.

We got up early in the morning and first drove out to Concord again, this time to see Walden Pond. Daniel just recently finished reading all of "Walden", the book Thoreau wrote while living in his little cabin in the woods there, so it was really neat to be able to see it in person.

There is a little trail that goes all the way around the pond, so we spent about an hour there and walked around the whole thing. It was really pretty, and it was nice to be out in nature after all our city walking the day before.



Daniel said that Thoreau talks a lot in the book about how clear the water is. It was good to see that this was still true, even though it's been over 150 years. We could see right to the bottom.


Daniel pondering at the edge of the lake:

And me kind of pondering:

But mostly I was just wishing I had brought my swimsuit, so I could join all the early morning lake swimmers we saw. I can't imagine a much better start to a day than an early swim across Walden Pond.

About halfway across the pond we came to the site of Thoreau's original cabin.

Daniel said that if I posed by this sign then I would have to read the book, and I think he's probably right, so I guess I better start reading. I'm actually a lot more interested in it now that I've seen the pond and have a picture in my mind.

After we left Walden Pond, we drove over to the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord. This is where Thoreau, Emerson, Hawthorne, and Louisa May Alcott were buried. I never knew that they were all part of the same community.

On our way out of Concord, we stopped by Emerson's house.

And after that we went for a little drive. . . .up to Maine! Daniel has a goal to someday go to all 50 states, so we decided that while we were in the area we may as well check off a few.

So here we are in Portland, Maine:

And when you're in Maine around lunchtime, the only fitting thing to do is have lobster for lunch (well, if you're Daniel. If you're me, you have something else because you're not that brave. And we were lucky enough to find probably the one restaurant in Portland that happens to serve both excellent lobster and excellent red bean and rice burritos.)

So here was Daniel's lunch. I did take a really cute picture of Daniel wearing the little bib that they bring out with the lobster, but I don't think I have persmission to post that one. The only reason I had permission to even take that one was because I knew it would be the highlight of our return when I showed it to Tristan and Oliver (and it was).

After our delicious lunch we took the scenic route back to Boston.

Meaning, we drove through New Hampshire and over to Vermont in order to check two more states off the list.

Here's what our route looked like:


Obviously the map doesn't show what a scenic drive it was, though. I loved New Hampshire and Vermont! I couldn't believe how pretty it was.

Once we got to Vermont we went to the Joseph Smith Birthplace Memorial outside of Sharon. The memorial is made from a single block of granite, and is 38 1/2 feet tall (one foot for every year of Joseph's life).

Here we are in front of the memorial:

And sitting on the bench located where Joseph was born:

After that we headed back to Boston. We knew we wanted to eat at one of the Italian restaurants in the North End when we got back, but we weren't sure where, and we didn't want to have to wait a long time for a table, so while we were driving I used Daniel's Blackberry to google "best places to eat in Boston." In only a few minutes, we had found one with a lot of good reviews, gotten the phone number, and called and made a reservation. I've decided that traveling with some technology can be helpful.

We drove back to our hotel and parked the car, and then walked back up to the North End. The restaurant we ate at was called "Artu", and I thought it was really good. After dinner we just walked around for awhile. We stopped by Mike's Pastry shop (one of the famous bakeries in the North End) and I had one of their cannolis. Daniel wasn't feeling that hungry, so he ordered an eclair, thinking it would just be one of those little ones. It wasn't. I'm not kidding, that thing was as big as a loaf of bread and weighed about six pounds. We couldn't even finish half of it.

And that was it for day three in Boston. At the end of the night I couldn't believe how much we had done that day- a walk around Walden Pond, lobster in Maine, driving across the whole state of New Hampshire, and then Vermont, the Joseph Smith memorial, and dinner and dessert back in Boston. It was an awesome day.