Day 9: Tracing the revolutionary war

An awesome first day in Boston....even it most of it wasn't spent in actual Boston. Went for a morning run on the emerald necklace; a string of ponds and a creek that bill Rodgers used to train on back in the 80s. They are fantastic. Dirt for much of it, it inconsistent, but a nice gem of woods surrounded by city. My legs were actually pretty tired from hiking so it was a bit of a slog, even with good scenery.

We found a brunch spot in cambridge across the river, Petsi's pies. Decent coffee and egg sandwiches. After this, I basically drug Kate to all of the random revolutionary war sites en route to concord, but I think she enjoyed it in the end.

First spot was washingtons command post in Cambridge during the siege.

It's a cool old house, definitely a lot of money put into the renovation and upkeep of it. It want open and it looked like they were actively working on the interior, but we were able to walk right up to it, which was pretty cool.

From there, we went to the Lexington battle green. I hadn't been here since 4th grade so it was cool to envision again as an adult. Next up was a stop at the minute man historic park visitor center. I was glad to have read up on the revolutionary war stuff but it was also nice to help fit more of the pieces together. We walked a little down the battle road to Paul Revere's capture site, then got in the car again and took a look at the north bridge in concord. Id imagine that it's surrounded by suburbs, wemthe park service did a nice job with the battle road. It feels very peaceful when walking it and it's gernerally only views of woods and fields.

The hope was also to check out Walden pond, but they weren't accepting visitors as they said that the park reserve was currently at capacity. Somehow I don't believe this was as much related to checking out Thoreau's cabin, but more in line with the beach on an 88 degree day. Oh well though, it'll save something for when I come back next time.

We headed back to Boston and Kate and Mel did a strengt class at a boxing gym in south Boston that Mel had started going to. I chose for a walk up to Dorchester heights. South Boston has really gentrified based on the reputation I had heard of it. The historic houses were incredibly well kept and there were new apartments going up all over the place at the base of the hill. Kind of a sad reality that close to the city center. The view is good from the heights, but you can't even really see the harbor through the trees and houses. I also believe that they filled in much of the old harbor so perhaps the view might have once been there. They had a couple cool history vignettes on Irish in southie too which was kind of cool to take in.

I still had time to kill on the walk back so I swung by a bar down the street from the gym. More of what I'd imagine a traditional south Boston bar, it was a good experience.

We ate dinner at worden hall, kind of general American food, but good. The taco place that Mel had originally hoped for was a 2 hour wait, and still was crazy busy after we finished our dinner. Another next time member I guess.