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!

This is what eating too fast and flying for 6 hours looks like. Haha

I am grateful for all of it!

Newport Rhode Island (day 5)

This is the day of rain.
It also happened to be our anniversary.
But seriously it was mostly the day of rain. Rain without even a teeny tiny break.
-So we ran in the rain
-we drove to Rhode Island in the rain
-we went to the Newport Mansions in the rain
-we explored the gardens in the rain
-we walked along the coast in the rain
-we ate in Newport at a tiki hut type restaurant in the rain.
-and finally drove back to Boston, yep you guessed it--in the rain.

The Vanderbilt summer cottage called the Breakers
A summer cottage...I mean seriously. That's fun.

Along the coast somewhere. Tom and that sky give off the illusion that it is not raining. I assure you that it most certainly was.

The back of the Marble House.
Another Vanderbilt cottage

This is the tiki hut called Salvation Cafe.
It was a perfect place to celebrate our twenty one years together. A little coastal retreat with red and white striped cushions all along the exterior. Red painted ceiling and walls with candles flickering on all the little tables. Oh sure the roof leaked but no matter I was sitting next to a wood burning stove eating the best butternut squash soup I have to this date and it all was so wonderfully cozy. Certainly a night to remember...

I am thankful for the twenty one years I have had with this man and to the many more to come. I am currently not that grateful for the rain.

Cape Cod (Day 4)

K I can't believe I am seriously still blogging about this trip. I am just kinda done with it because it is taking far too long. But the deal is this between my snippets of time and my stupid computer I am just going to have to get over it and write a little something.

I loved Cape Cod.

I really did and the lighthouses were as much fun to see as the bridges. The beaches were stunning with the green grasses flowing in the coastal breeze. I could have sat on those beaches all day but we had darling houses and villages to ooh and awe at.

The first house I really fell in love with was a quaint little cape cod in Provo Ut. It was like 19 years ago and I guess that my love affair with real estate began right then and there. I would divert all my errands to circle around that home. The people living there probable thought some creepy person was stalking them-- but nope it was just me in l.o.v.e. with their house. I still do that BTW for a perfect little charmer. It lives up the street from me and it makes me happy to see it each and every day. Actually I do that for many special houses but that one especially. Maybe I will take a picture so that you all can enjoy its darlingness too. Any-who as we would drive through the towns in cape cod I would yell, "Look at that darling cape cod, look at that cape cod." Tom had to continually remind me that indeed we were in cape cod and thus all the darling cape cod style homes. Oh yea that's right. :)

I loved Cape Cod as much in real life as I did my dreams.

New Hampshire (Day 3)

How beautifully the leaves grow old. How full of light and color their last days.
John Burroughs

Finally it was time to go see the colored leaves.
Evidently, Boston mid October is usually in its peak of fall. However it hasn't been cold enough to turn those leaves. So you might see a red of yellow tree here or there but basically they were still all green. :(

So we woke up and rented our car and immediately headed up to New Hampshire. We had been told over and over again that we needed to get to the White Mountain Forest and drive the Kancamagus Highway.

Now once again there was a leaf changing delay and we had to get pretty far North to see them. Tom and I being serious road warriors didn't care how far North we needed to get. We would have driven to Canada to see the splendor.
There was just a tiny problem. Come to find out the year that my fall dream fell into place was also the year that New England got a lot of rain. All this moisture does something to the tree. The leaves just turn yellow and fall off the branches. Soooo you don't have as much color as you normally do. Ugh!!
But to us it was just as breathtaking and beautiful as possible. Maybe the trees weren't as spectacular as other years but that is all relative. It was this crisp fall day with crunchy leaves under my feet. A feeling in the air I will never forget and this day goes into my books as a highlight.

Oh the New England windy roads, with majestic forest on either side, leading to yet another idyllic small town. A white church in the center with pumpkins everywhere and cornstalks crawling up each lamppost. It was something out of a storybook and I would just let out joyful screams.
People live here...this is their home...o.m.g.

Early on in the day we also discovered covered bridges.
I had heard of covered bridges. I mean I read " The Bridges of Madison County" but it took seeing them to make me want to jump up and down.
So we went bridge chasing!
Their history, their adorableness, their oldness and their beautiful streams and rivers that run under them. It lit a little fire under us and now we might have to go to Madison county just to see the bridges. Ha!

On our way...

Where I first fell in love with my first covered bridge.

See what I am saying!

unbelievable right?




Rain..whatever that is a stunning leaf.
I fell head over heals in love with this old beauty.

Isn't she something?


My love still trying to work. :)

This is the last bridge before day gave into night . It nearly broke my heart. I would of given anything for 6 more hours of the suns precious light.


Along the way the barns almost killed me.
We eventually started saying... stop at every church, bridge, barn or really just any dilapidated building. All of it is worthy of our time.




Thank you New Hampshire. You were everything I thought you would be...you were perfect!