Divine Concord: A Highlight Stop

Graves of Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau’s humble and tiny headstone. It was mud-spattered by the rain, so I wiped it clean.

There are places where the mists of history are so thick you inhale them, and they become part of you. That's what it felt like on the first night and morning of this trip. 

Plans come and go, and no vagabondage ever turns out as originally conceived. Before even leaving Jackson, I altered plans that long had me increasingly excited. Yet, somehow, our first stop turned out better than when I first dreamed of it.

We came to Concord for the ghosts, for those on the battlefield, and those whose words have guided me for decades.

Concord is where Henry David Thoreau was born and lived, and Ralph Waldo Emerson lived. In fact, on more than one occasion, Henry lived in Ralph's home. And just down the road, along Walden Pond, Thoreau built his monkish cabin, where he stayed as a semi-solitary for two years.

Henry David Thoreau lived for another two years at what is now Concord's Colonial Inn. It's the reaso…