Day Five: Concord & Salem MA

Fran and I got a somewhat early start Friday morning.
We put on some clothes suitable for hiking, had some breakfast and then left for Concord- my favorite town in the whole wide world (well, at least of the towns i have seen so far).

Our first stop was Walden Pond which is where my idol, Henry David Thoreau spent two years living in solitude. I was a little nervous as we pulled into the parking lot because we were behind two large school buses. The last thing i wanted on my hike to reflect and be "alone" as much as possible, was a few busloads of rowdy school kids. Thankfully, we barely encountered them aside from the parking lot. 

We hiked around the pond, snapping some cool pictures along the way

Aside from the poorly marked trails and bugs it was rather enjoyable. At one point we stopped by a group of children to put on bug spray. I was listening intently to the tour guide who was going to give one lucky child a replica of Thoreau's walking stick! I was jealous and kind of wanted to just join their group.

Another part of me thought about sneaking up behind them and then start to run and scream "BEAR!!!"

Considering I think it was a group of first graders, i'd say that would have gone over quite well :)

After we completed our trip around the pond, we sat down the by tiny beach area to eat our lunch.

Lunch was severely squished pb&j sandwiches.

There was a group of kids who were in the wading area and this one obnoxious kid who kept screaming "there's a crab! there's a crab! EVERYBODY STEP BACK!!! PLEASE BE CAUTIOUS"

he was pretty into it.

While we were eating lunch all of a sudden I heard Fran shriek. I looked over and saw this.

The right lens on her sunglasses just decided to explode out of the frame for no apparent reason. The glasses were quite broken, obviously. But she hadn't done anything to them! She was merely sitting, eating an orange.

After that fiasco we went to the Concord Museum. I went to the museum last year with my sister but didn't mind at all going again. We got our history lesson for the day, and saw another million groups of kids on field trips.

After that we went to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, where Thoreau and Emerson are buried.

We headed home, showered, and got ready to go to Salem with my sister.
We got to Salem just a few minutes after five, which was when the one store we really wanted to go to closed!! But we walked around a few other shops, grabbed dinner and then Fran and I decided to go on a Ghost Tour at 8pm.

It was pretty good... the tour guide really made it awesome.

I mean, who wouldn't want to follow this guy around town for an hour and a half?
He was hilarious. I could post some of his one-liners here, but i feel like you kind of had to have been there to understand the humor.

I feel like we got another pretty sweet history lesson out of the tour. Learned a lot about the sinister past of Salem and he encouraged us to take pictures of certain places/homes because there have been a lot of interesting photographs that have cropped up in those places over the years.

The cemetery, where the 19 people who were hanged for being witches are buried.
Stones read  "I do plead not guilty"

For being a fan of American History and having an interest in the paranormal... I think Salem is a pretty cool place.

That pretty much sums up our Friday.
I have to write about today but I'll save it for tomorrow morning 'cause right now I need some sleep!