History in a Weekend

Heading the opposite direction from our summer travels, we concluded the summer of 09 with a trip north and into the past. Massachusetts, being one of the oldest settlements in the "New World", has a fascinating and involving history, both political and literary. We settled on a long weekend in Sudbury, about 20 miles west of Boston, largely because we got a great offer through Travel Zoo. (If you don't know that site, check out http://www.travelzoo.com/ - we have enjoyed our various stays through its services.)
Anyway, Sudbury is home to the Wayside Inn, as in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Tales of a Wayside Inn", reclaimed from history by none other than Henry Ford, who used it as a summer home. It is now a restaurant and a BnB, and its grounds feature the removed-from-its-original site-and-reconstructed Red Brick Schoolhouse which reportedly is the school attended by Mary of little lamb fame. It also has a rebuilt gristmill, still used - the flour, cornmeal, and bran ground there is used by the restaurant for its delicious breads served wth meals. (The gristmill is also the site of the plastic "duck race" on Labor Day to raise funds for a children's hospital. We have a "six quack" of entries - their words, not mine - so wish us or them luck. The ducks are released upstream of the mill and then careen down a waterfall and stop a few yards down stream.)
A few miles north of Sudbury is Concord, of grapes and revolutionary war fame. We spent a while walking over the "Minuteman Bridge" (which Ralph Waldo Emerson called the "shot heard round the world"), and pacing the old Boston Post Road which begins the "battle road" of April, 1775. We also visited the Emerson home known as the Old Manse, which was owned by the Emerson family and borders the Concord battlefield. Years after, it was the temporary home of Nathanial Hawthorne, who authored "Mosses from the Old Manse" there which contained his early short stories like "Young Goodman Brown". (He also wrote graffitti on the windows by etching the glass with his wife's diamind ring. The words are still there.) And, of course, you can't spend too much time in Concord without mentioing Henry David Thoreau - a main shopping street in town is named for him; he was a good friend of Hawthorne; his Walden Pond cabin is a few miles south of town; and he, Hawthorne, and Emerson are all buried on "Author's Ridge" in the nearby Sleepy Hollow Cemetary. Down the road a piece is Lexington where the battle continued and essentially began the Revolution.
Another short - well, about 50 minutes - trip southwest of Boston is Quincy, home to the birthplace and residences of John and Abigail Adams and John Quincy Adams, the first father-son presidents (we won't be visiting the homes of the second). They are also buried nearby, in a crypt under a Unitarian church that John Adams helped raise funds to build. Fact I did not know (or at least remember): John Q. Adams is the only president to return to Congress after his presiency, serving 17 years in the House of Representatives, where he literally died while giving a speech one day at the age of 81. It was a slight thrill to stand on the same porch that John Adams did and walk down the "President's Hall, used by John Quincy, when he stayed in his "summer white house" there.
Some great natural areas abound as well - Boston has "Blue Hills Reservation", a huge public park that borders Quincy and Milton, with some fabulous trails through the woods and up to a few hills (only 500 feet above sea level, so not a lot like West Virginia) but with an astounding view of Boston and its harbor. Nice trek through piney woods.
An instant return to the 21st century as we drove onto I-93 and I-95 at 65 miles per hour back to our lovely little Carriage House Inn in Sudbury.