Let's return to Concord, shall we?
You see, I just can't help myself. I've been enraptured since that first night on the road last December 20. After walking the historic streets under dizzying clusters of stars stalking us through late December's bare tree branches in the pre-dawn hours while envisioning Thoreau and Emerson, Alcott, and Hawthorne, I was ripe for the picking.
Sunrise brought a sparkling blue sky but frigid winds that nipped and snapped at us. We visited the authors' graves in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and then, on a whim, walked down to the Old Manse. It was built in 1770 for Ralph Waldo Emerson's grandfather and abuts the Old North Bridge, where the shot heard around the world was fired.
Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne later lived and wrote there. Henry David Thoreau designed and planted the original gardens. And right beyond its stone wall is the historic bridge.
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