Day 6: Concord and New Hampshire

I fell more behind and we're home now! I still have four more days to cover, though, so I'll try to finish writing those posts this week.

Day 6: Concord and New Hampshire

Outskirts of Boston 

First thing on Thursday, we dropped Ashley off at the Boston airport, a crazy drive! Putting the airport on an island might have been ill-advised [Josh note: somehow, Boston has worse street design than DC and worse drivers than Maryland]. Ashley had to leave the trip early for an architecture program at Notre Dame. We were sad to say goodbye! 

Our next stop was Wellesley College, just outside of Boston. It’s a nice, woodsy campus with an impressive Gothic tower, and the student center looks like a treehouse. Spencer thinks it’s prettier than Harvard and Yale. 

The student center

Has anyone else seen the movie Mona Lisa Smile?

A few minutes past Wellesley, we saw the Plymouth Church in Framingham, which is the first place that the Battle Hymn of the Republic was performed. [Josh note: to prepare, we listened to different renditions of it during the drive between Wellesley and Framingham].

Lexington & Concord

Our big stop for the day was Minuteman National Historical Park in Concord, MA. We had a picnic lunch at one of the visitors center and watched a short video about the Battle of Lexington and Concord (start of the American Revolution). 

We had a nice view of the river down the hill.

The North Bridge visitors center

The Battle of Lexington & Concord started because the British wanted to capture and destroy the American armory in Concord. This is one of the cannons from the armory. 

We then took a short walk to the North Bridge, site of the “shot heard round the world,” a phrase coined by Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

After the bridge, we drove to the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, which has a section called “authors ridge,” where Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Nathaniel Hawthorne are buried. 

It's tradition to leave pencils at the graves of the authors buried at Authors Ridge. This is me leaving a pencil at Thoreau's grave.

Louisa May Alcott

We then drove to the Concord main street and walked around. There was a British imports store, where Josh and Spencer got more lemon soda, and I got a lavender latte at a coffee shop. 

Main street Concord. It's a cute touristy town

Before the battle, the Concord minutemen gathered at this tavern. Here's Josh and Spencer as a redcoat and minuteman. 

We finished our trip to the national park with a visit to the main visitors center. On the way, we saw Louisa May Alcott’s childhood home, Orchard House, which is the setting for Little Women. At the visitors center, there’s a 30 minute “award-winning multimedia theater production” about the Battle of Lexington and Concord and Paul Revere. It was quite good! 

Orchard House, very idyllic

The visitors center

Our last stop in the area was Lexington, where they have a Revolutionary War monument in the middle of the town green. 

New Hampshire Coast

We drove a couple hours from Lexington to New Hampshire. We were surprised by how much traffic there was half an hour outside of Boston! The driving situation in Massachusetts does not seem good [Josh note: the driving is terrible. Don't know why the British wanted to keep this state]. 

Fourth state of the trip!

Our first stop was supposed to be the grave of Josiah Bartlett, first governor of New Hampshire and namesake of fictional President Josiah Bartlet in The West Wing. Unfortunately, we went to the wrong cemetery, so we moved on. (In fairness, there are three Plains Cemeteries in southern New Hampshire.) 

We finished the day with a visit to Wallis Sands Beach, a beautiful state beach [Josh note: the beach reminded me of Pacific Grove]. It was a warm, sunny evening, but the water was absolutely frigid. Spencer and I managed to wade in a couple of feet deep and had fun jumping in the waves. 

Spencer was the only one to get his hair wet!

It was weird to see the sun not setting over the ocean!

After the beach, we drove along the coast and through Portsmouth, a charming town on the water, and crossed over the bridge to Maine. We spent the night at the Franciscan Guest House in Kennebunkport. It’s a small hotel on the grounds of a Franciscan monastery, operated by the monks to raise money for a Franciscan school in Lithuania. 

Outside of the Franciscan Guest House. I took this picture the next morning.

It reminded me a lot of Centro Maria

Especially the crucifixes in the room!