Today we took our kids to one of the stops we made on our honeymoon bike trip: Walden Pond. Of course, our kids have to swim in all the ponds, and they have no idea who Henry David Thoreau is. I have not yet tortured them with transcendentalism. I do love that Walden Pond is a bit untraveled, still, in that its not generally a tourist destination. There was even a free, hands-on demonstration for the kids in the basics of ceramics sculpting! My, aren’t we a fancy historical landmark! 
Apparenty, I have previously expressed my love-hate relationship with Thoreau in earshot of my children, because they all had a good-humored, yet negative attitude about being at this pond. There was once this high school teacher who tried very hard to encourage our enlightenment by pointing out that the more you meditate, study, and ponder “big questions,” the higher you advance on what he called the “ladder of intellect,” or sometimes the “ladder of enlightenment.” He put Thoreau at the top of the ladder. He put himself a few rungs down. We were at the bottom. He was trying to get us to see ourselves as disciples ripe for teaching. We saw ourselves as too brilliant for our britches, and were just trying to finagle out of that AP class an A to add to our glutted GPA. Maybe a few seeds were planted, but mostly, Thoreau was wasted on us.
As we passed by the little replica cabin representing Thoreau’s cabin, the kids needed to explore and interact with the man of the house. Who knew Thoreau would be so tolerant of children!!! Maybe it was his interactions with Mr. Alcott. He allowed my kids to crawl all over his house, and all over him!
So scandalous.
We next took a drive through Lexington and Concord where great men made decisions about entering into revolution. I wonder if the men living there today would have such resolve.
There were so many artists and authors and statesmen who lived here. It seems that every house has a sign with a recognizable name on it.
Miss Magpie yelled out “Little Women!” What? Wait, she’s right! There’s Louisa May Alcott’s house!
Of all the houses we could have stopped at, Orchard House may have accidentally been the best choice. It was where Little Women was written. I learned a lot I never knew before. For example, Louisa’s sister, May, was a very talented artist, and counted among her students Daniel Chester French of Lincoln Memorial fame. Alcott’s father appears to have been an unsung giant in the free-range parenting movement, and he ran a school that had Montessori written all over it. The Alcott girls regularly mingled with great thinkers and their children. Why, Thoreau himself, and Emerson, appear to have been influential in the development of the girls when they were young adults. It all sounded lovely. Except that even though Mr. Alcott was a prolific writer and even built a school on his land, his schools failed again and again, and his writing are described as chaotic. Ahem. As are those of Thoreau and Emerson, but let’s move on. 
Our camp site is beautiful, far in the forest. Perhaps the best way to end this day is with smoke bombs. 
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