Walden Again! But with a Detour for History

Wednesday morning we did a few chores in preparation for leaving for beach week in North Carolina. Casey mowed the grass while Beau and a friend watered the garden.



Afterward, everyone was hungry and sweaty: ready for lunch and a swim. We ate at a Japanese restaurant.



Among other things, Dante had sushi and Beau had gyoza.




On the way to Walden Pond for one last swim, we stopped at the Old North Bridge in Concord: site of the second skirmish on the first day of what was to become the American Revolution. The boys were not too happy about the detour.



Here you can see how glad they are to be waiting for a ranger talk.



With the forced history lesson over, Casey was finally willing to join in the photos.



Then we beat a hasty retreat (just like the British).



When we finally arrived at Walden Pond, Dante decided he wanted to swim across it -- on the one day I was the lone adult on our outing. We came to a compromise, and as we left, Beau and Casey walked a short way and waited at the main beach for us while Dante and I swam from our preferred beach to the far corner of the main beach (behind him in the photo), then we had a short 2-minute walk to meet up with the younger boys.



Being from California, it's a novelty to Dante to see out-of-state license plates, so we've been calling out all the non-Massachusetts plates we see. We've seen a fair number of California plates, some Texas plates, and a few from New Mexico. In the parking lot of Walden Pond we found one from Alaska. It got the prize for "having come the farthest.



Our day wouldn't be complete without ice cream. We stopped at Christina's in Cambridge.




Our last stop of the day was to get Casey to the ice rink.