Several years ago I figured out a way to connect some of my woodland walks together by a bit of road walking to create an eight hour walk going from one town's commuter rail station to another station in another town (not that it helps me, they are on different lines but Bostonians could use it). I've walked it a couple of times around the winter solstice as there is just enough daylight to do it. This year I've only done short walks with Peg so I made the challenge easier by cutting off an hour at each end. We drove to a spot near Walden Pond and walked together a bit before she headed back to the car and I headed home. An hour before reaching home my legs and ego started a debate. My brain decided in favor of my legs and Peg got a call. I walked it a few days ago, earlier than normal because the weather demanded it (warm enough for just a sweatshirt over a tee-shirt and before a snowfall).
The most interesting part of the hike is in the
town of Concord and so here are some pictures of it with links (mostly to the Wikipedia and New England Travel Planner websites).
We walked the short local
Emerson-Thoreau Amble to Walden. It is used as part of the
Bay Circuit Trail, a 300 km walk around Boston.
Walden Pond showing how low the winter sun is.
The site of
Henry David Thoreau's hut was found about 100 years later.
On a slope the dry oak leaves were slippery but on the level it was fun to kick them when walking to hear them sing.
At another pond a beaver left behind a sculpture.
In the center of town is the
interesting original burial ground.
Just a short walk away was the
Sleepy Hollow cemetery with the
Melvin Memorial, one Civil War veteran's homage to his three brothers who died in the war. The sculpture is by
Daniel Chester French.
Also in the cemetery are
the graves of Thoreau, Emerson, Alcott, Hawthorne and French. All are awarded tributes from fans. Here is Thoreau's headstone at the family plot.
At the
site of the skirmish that Concord says was the start of the American Revolutionary War (nearby Lexington has a different opinion) is French's first public sculpture,
The Minute Man. One of his later ones was of Abraham Lincoln in Washington, DC's Lincoln Memorial.