Celebrating the Ordinary: Concord and Cambridge Massachussetts (Day 6)

I have super exciting news. This is the last day of my trip so I am officially done blogging about it...Hallelujah! It is sooo time to talk about something/anything else.

But still I couldn't just leave this day out for this is the Walden pond. So peaceful, so beautiful that I thought I might want to live here. A simple life seemed within reach sitting on the banks of this lake.

This is the last picture I took with my camera. My cf cards were all full and I didn't have my brother in law Dan to save me with my constant photography mishaps. :) The result of this is two fold--
1. There are basically only pictures of me now because Tom was snapping with his iPhone
2. We don't have as many pictures. Now while I realize this is not a tragedy for the reader this is devastating to me.

After Walden Pond we visited Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and Author's Ridge. Could there be a better name for a cemetery than Sleepy Hollow....impossible.

I love, love, love "Little Women"

Literary greats Emerson, Thoreau and Hawthorn were buried here.

Ralph Waldo Emerson's house

I have three sisters.

My dad has always thought of us as his "Little Women."
We actually all fit the mold a tiny bit too.
Meg, Jo Beth and Amy as the March sisters and Angelin, Tiffany, Hilary and Annabelle as the Brown sisters.
Ang is a lot like Jo with a mind of her own and her strong will. Jo was described as having a hot temper. She was fiercely protective and did anything for her sisters.
Tiffany, I always thought she seemed like Beth. Beth was always so sick. Our Tiffy has had her share of illnesses right down to scarlet fever. Beth was always so sweet and loved her sisters dearly.
Annabelle and Amy are a perfect fit in a lot of ways. Besides both being the baby of the family they are both absolutely adorable. Both are proper and carry themselves so beautifully. Both were given a lot as youngsters and Amy is described as spoiled. But the difference is my Belle certainly never through the temper tantrums that Amy did. She's too darn responsible and wonderful.

I guess that makes me Meg. I don't feel like I am a Meg. I feel like I have traits of all the other sisters more than Meg. I sorta feel more like a Beth.
All I know is I feel like the luckiest sister in the world to be raised in a home with my best friends. I love them all beyond belief and will always be grateful that I have my own story to tell of Little Women.

Minute Man Historical Park

The North Bridge
This is the exact spot that the American revolution began and the famous "shot that was heard around the world."
Great men dared to dream of a country free of Britain's control. This is where they displayed their determination and the battle began.
They fought and died right here on this now beautiful and peaceful field.
Because of their sacrifice I enjoy the freedom that they could only dream of.
My heart was so full and all I could think to do was bow my head, say a prayer and whisper thank you...

It was not a accident that I wore red, white and blue. It was sooo planned. :)

Concord, Ma
There is a Concord about 15 minutes from my house and let's just say it is not a great place to live. So when we were heading for this Concord I was thinking it was going to be gross too. Why? I don't know...I just did.
So I think I was even more surprised by this wonderful, picturesque, adorable little town. Concord was home to some of the greatest minds in America in the nineteenth century. They actually called Concord the "American Athens." The entire area was also affectionately called "The flowering of New England."
Everything has been perfectly preserved here and I loved every single minute that we were in this town.

Cambridge Ma.
Harvard
Oh my heavens I have dreamed of seeing this University since....forever.
I kept looking at the students with their backpacks on and thinking,"Oh my gosh, for the rest of their life when someone asks them where they went to college they get to say...Oh I went to Harvard." I mean it is the ultimate. It's like the comedian Brian Reagan's bit about walking on the moon. Nobody can beat a story if you have walked on the moon and nobody can beat your university if you went to Harvard. I am talking immediate and total respect. How fun is that?
The history, the smart people, the town.
I love Harvard and I want to go there in another and very distant life.

We had absolutely no business going to this burger spot on Harvard Square whatsoever. It was way too late and we had to drive through rush hour traffic, drop our car off and shuttle it to the airport. But when we read that this restaurant had the "best burgers in America" well we couldn't resist and we just had to try them.
K that just made me laugh so hard because that totally reminded me of Elf when he sees the sign for the "best cup of coffee." That is so ridiculously funny I can hardly take it.
But back to the real story.
Well I shoved my veggie burger and 75 sweet potato fries in my mouth, taking about 5 minutes to enjoy my "best burger in America" and started sprinting to our car. The fun did not stop there and if there weren't all of 5 people in our terminal we would have surely missed our flight.
I was so sick by the time we took off that I never recovered.
Flight rule 101-- Never eat a burger, then get stressed out and have to run for days right before being cooped up in a plane. That is simply put, is not a mistake I will make again, even for the best burger in the world!