New Jersey - The only state so far with the sign in the middle of the freeway.....
Almost spaced out and missed this sign... I was tired, slightly fatigued from just a small bit of alcohol, a little girl with a tummy ache crawling in my bed, sorta feeling like I was getting sick, and ................ Oh wait, did I space out again?
The end of this week's epic journey is in sight. All I can say is thank goodness these North Eastern States are so small. By the way, anything north east of Tennessee is a Northeaster to this southern gal.
We pulled into this great park, we scored a spot by the playground, our kids disappeared from the truck in nanoseconds, we unhitched & hooked up. We arose not so bright and early this morning and headed to this place.
Minute Man National Park - North Bridge Visitor Center
For reference most people would say to finish here....
The Visitor Center and ground here are spectacular.
We saw a
History Detectives Episode on PBS about one of these Cannons. They actually show the episode here.
The gardens at the North Bridge Visitors Center-
These alone are worth a visit in spring -
Can you see it? The British on one side and the Colonials on the other - (This is at least the fifth bridge to occupy this spot since that shot was fired)
The Minuteman Statue
From the Nationalcenter.org website,
here is the full hymn that you see the first verse of in the pictures below.
Graves of the British Soldiers (two of them) who died from those first shots -
The Old Manse - Ancestral Home of Emerson and later the home of Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Old Manse Boat House and Pictures of the River from the dock of the boat house.
The Emerson's had a the perfect view and watched the "Shot heard round the world" as it happened on the road that ran beside their yard.
Driving to the rest of the park meant going thru Concord. The only picture I got that came out was of this church.
Hartwell Tavern, which is located on the Battle Road. There is about five miles of the Battle Road you can hike, run, or bike. We started at this tavern and walked 1.5 miles to the other Visitor's Center.
Although the tavern was not open yet, Shawn did manage to get one picture of the inside through a window.
The site of the Samuel Hartwell's House.
Captain William Smith's House -
There a several Memorial Markers along the way.
This marks the place that Paul Revere was captured and the other two Midnight Riders escaped.
Josiah Nelson's House Site -
More of the Memorial Markers -
Just in case we didn't know......
Only another half a mile to go......
The Non-North Bridge Visitor Center has a show that explains the events of that fateful day. It will help you to put together the separate parts of the park. This was a park that took some time to digest all that you see and learn. It might also take some time for me feets to forgive me....
Things I noticed or loved -
The gardens are spectacular at the North Bridge Visitors Center.
It is like stepping into the footsteps of history.
The type of gravel and sand they use on the Battle Road, if you have enough people walking with or near you, brings to mind the sound of marching feet. If you open your imagination just a bit you can hear that column of Brits marching toward Concord in your mind.
I could almost see those British Soldiers, in their Redcoats, trying to get to safety. Walking or running down the road they'd just traveled earlier in the day and not knowing from which tree or boulder the next shot would be fired from. Being sent into the woods, in small groups, to find the source of the shots and knowing that most who had done so had not returned.
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