Browning Vignettes: October 2014

Words cannot express how I feel about New England. But here I am about to attempt to write something that I know I will never do justice. You know how some people express themselves as "loving all things tropical" or as "mountain lovers"? As far as the U.S. goes, I have always had a fascination with the New England area, and other than my trips to visit Kim in Vermont, which I ADORED, I have never been anywhere else.

So when the opportunity of driving Kim and Steve's other car from Vermont to Utah for their move presented itself, Ben and I seized it! A cross-country road trip, just the two of us, and I would finally get to see more of New England and more!

I had to prepare myself that we wouldn't be able to see everything because you pass many potential sites as you go from Vermont to Utah, but with the six traveling days we had, we knew we had to be realistic.

We arrived in Vermont to pick up the car, and I was finally able to show Ben Montpelier and its charm :) Fall had just begun and it was magical: a New England fall--dreams come true!

I loved showing Ben around Montpelier, and since this was my third visit, I was feeling like quite the expert with a lot of help from Kim's teachings :)

In a previous post, I gushed about Montpelier's food. Yep, still amazing! We had a romantic Italian dinner along the river, and I wish I had Ben's pictures to include, but it isn't worth the hour and a half hassle the transfer would take.

The colors were so vibrant! Pictures don't do the vivid reds, yellows, and oranges justice!

We drove along the Vermont countryside to Joseph Smith's birthplace.

I love the way I feel when I visit this place.

Across from Joseph Smith's birthplace is a beautiful pond. I love how many ponds, streams, rivers, and lakes are in New England.

BUT, my whole life I have dreamed of seeing Boston. I have been infatuated with it from the beginning, and even though it was two and a half hours in the opposite direction from UT, we took a detour on our first day. Totally "unrealistic" in terms of travel planning but oh-so worth it!

Then we were off to Boston, and I couldn't help but notice while planning that we would be driving through Concord: the site of Louisa May Alcott's, who wrote Little Women and much more, Orchard House.

I loved the tour of the Orchard House and hearing all about Louisa May Alcott and how the characters from Little Women were patterned after her own sisters' lives. I think I love Louisa's writing so much because it shows how the little life happenings weave the fabric that life is made of. While she does this, she also relays the importance of being good through this life's journey. And I love Meg in Little Women; she is my favorite.

I couldn't go to Concord, MA and NOT go to Walden Pond, ten minutes from Orchard House. I love Thoreau's writings. In fact, one of my favorite classes in my Master's program was a Transcendental Lit class where we studied Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott's father, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. American Transcendentalism is a time in the 19th century where writers talked about the inherent goodness of people and how people connect to nature and to God. It is actually one of my only favorite time periods to study in American Lit.

The definition of a pond must be what the definition of a lake is on the West Coast. Walden Pond was HUGE and a very popular place for swimmers (like, intense swimmers with their little caps and all).

Ben and I walked around the pond and soaked in the perfect fall air and scenery.

Then I got to see the site of Thoreau's homestead.

Ode to Thoreau:

I could not capture his works' meaning better than his own words (above).

Only five minutes from Walden Pond, was Sleep Hollow Cemetery (yes, I was in literary nerd heaven, and was so sad we couldn't see Ralph Waldo Emerson's home). Right below Sleepy Hollow Cemetery is a foresty swamp. And it is SPOOKY! No wonder so many tales have been written about this place! Alas, the pictures of that are on Ben's camera...so look it up!

Buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreou, and Alcott.

Along the freeway from Concord to Boston, I saw a familiar site: an LDS temple! I told Ben to "turn off; turn off!" And we took a quick temple trip. The Boston Temple is absolutely beautiful.

The next morning we woke up to this site in Boston:

And I am having technical difficulties (again!) and all of my Palmyra/Niagara pics uploaded in the middle of my Boston, so we are going to take a brief detour from Boston...