Today, the twins and I went on an adventure together. But first, we dropped off the rest of the family at the train station, cause they were going to New York City to see a show!
Prior to embarking on our adventure, we needed sustenance. It has been a LONG time (ok, a couple of months) since we’ve eaten at Chick Fil A, and there was one relatively on the way, and so that is where we went.
After we were done eating, we drove to our intended destination: Walden Pond, which featured in Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden”
My thought was that we might check out the visitor’s center and snap a couple of pictures. I honestly didn’t see us being there for more than an hour or two.
And so, when I saw that parking for a non-Massachusetts vehicle would be $30, I said “Heck no”. I am not THAT big of a fan….
Fortunately, there were two sites that I had been deciding between when I looked at coming to the Lexington and Concord area (yes, THAT Lexington and THAT Concord!), and so we just went and did the second one.
The Minute Man National Historical Park comprises 1038 acres and runs through the towns of Lexington, Lincoln, and Concord.
My Revolutionary war knowledge was pretty rusty, so we went to the Visitor’s Center to get our bearings, to talk to the rangers, and to get an idea of what would be the most interesting to our little party of three.
We walked around and looked at all the displays. And a couple of minutes after we arrived they started up a 20 minute multimedia presentation detailing the opening battle of the Revolutionary War.
It was a fantastic overview. Enough information that you get a solid idea of what happened, but short enough that you didn’t get lost in the details ( and, win, the twins didn’t lose it!)
In short: British soldiers were sent from Boston to Lexington and Concord to seize the munitions gathered there. When the colonial leaders caught wind of this, Paul Revere and other riders were sent on their midnight ride to warn the people in these areas.
When the British arrived early in the morning (after an overnight march), they skirmished with Colonists. The British soldiers began making their way back to Boston, skirmishing with the Minute Men along the entire way back to Boston, a battlefield about 16 miles long.
Obviously, there were many casualties on both sides. And this unusual battlefield marked the start of the Revolutionary War.
After we saw the multimedia presentation, we decided to go see one more spot, which also had a visitor center.
As we drove that way, we stopped briefly at the spot where Paul Revere was captured.
And then we drove through the town of Concord. Oh my cuteness.
We also drove by Orchard House, which is the home of Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women. (I actually just watched the new version with Saoirse Ronan just a couple weeks ago, so that felt fortuitous!)
Eventually we made it to the North Bridge Visitor Center, which is housed in a beautiful old home. There were a lot more displays and artifacts to look at here.
Then we walked around the gardens surrounding the house for a moment.
And then we made our way down to the North Bridge, which is often referred to as the location of the “shot heard round the world.”
From the NPS site: “On the morning of April 19, 1775 , Colonial Militia from Concord and surrounding towns exchanged gunfire with British regulars guarding the critical river crossing. Although the fighting at the North Bridge lasted only a few seconds, it marked the beginning of a massive battle that raged over 16 miles along the Bay Road from Concord to Boston, and included some 1,700 British regulars and over 4,000 Colonial militia.”
So obviously this bridge is a pretty important part of history. It was almost hard to believe, given how peaceful and tranquil the spot is.
We chatted with a park ranger for a moment and he asked the twins what their names were. They told him. And we learned that one of the Minute Men who died at this spot had been a man named Isaac.
I thought that was very interesting. But the twins were more interested in throwing rocks, let’s be honest. The sky was starting to look rather ominous, and the twins were definitely starting to get tired, and so we made our way back to the visitor center.
It started sprinkling as we were walking to the car. Shortly after we got in the car and started driving the twins fell asleep and it started pouring, and Thundering. That’s a capital “T” Thundering. It was seriously some of the most epic thunder I’ve ever heard.
We drove the entire way back to Boston in that epic storm.
An awesome day, though it definitely ended up very different from how I had expected.
