Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery is in Concord, MA.  Cool name, right? However the original Sleepy Hollow cemetery where the legend existed and Washington Irving rests is in New York. 

The one in Massachusetts is an attraction too with its Authors Ridge including Louisa May Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne. 

Louisa May Alcott

Henry David Thoreau

I should have brought some writing implements. Apparently that is how one pays respects to a famous deceased writer.

Nathaniel Hawthorne and family

My favorite stone was that of Emerson.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Next to his stone was his wife's with a gorgeous tulip relief.

The cemetery was a beautiful site that must be amazing in autumn when the foliage is at its peak!

The headstones are quite basic here but some have awesome weathering!

 Below certainly is being put on a pedestal! 

I would love to explore Concord more in the Fall. On the way to the cemetery I drove by the Little Women house! It was where Alcott lived, wrote and used for the setting of the novel. 

Homes of Thoreau and Emerson are also in Concord. However I'm not sure why Hawthorne rests here since he resided in the witch hysteria town of Salem, MA. That is also where the House of Seven Gables is. It is amazing to live in the same area my entire life and not have explored so many neat historical sites!

I hope you enjoyed this peak of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Thank you for stopping by. Have a great week ahead! ~Val

Walden Pond

I'm starting to play around with photo editing in some of these (a new world for me)!

Walden Pond is located in Concord, Massachusetts.  It was made famous by Henry David Thoreau's Walden (A.K.A. Life in the Woods).

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not, when I came to die, discover that I have not lived." The transcendentalist movement intrigued me quite a bit back in my college days and Thoreau was considered a leader in this. 

Thoreau's Cabin Site

Thoreau lived in a cabin he built himself in this woods for 2 years and 2 months beginning in 1845. Visitors have built cairns at the site.

There are trails around the pond and higher up on the woods.

 The pond was glistening in the sun!

It was breezy at times causing ripples.

My walk through the woods was incredibly relaxing.

A random orchid in the woods. She came out a little fuzzy since it was breezy so I should have changed the camera setting! I brightened her coloring a little to show her off.

My attempt to capture one of my favorite sounds in the world, that of a lake or a pond hitting its shore. It was breezy so the camera picked up lots of the wind!

In part of Thoreau's conclusion, he stated "I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the directions of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

He left the woods "Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one."

Thank you for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed this trip to Walden Pond. ~Val