| Walden Pond. Location of American author and scholar Henry David Thoreau's famous book Walden -- A story about a man's retreat into nature to discover, among other things, himself. Stopping off at Walden pond was for me too a retreat from my own, now somewhat banal, home life. |
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| Unfortunately, seconds after I turned off the main highway, I was greeted by a lengthy backup of tourists from all over the country trying to take home a piece of this particular aspect of American history. When I finally approached the entrance, I was forced to make a mandatory two dollar donation for the hour long parking spot rental. Before nearing the pond itself, I had to walk by the "Thoreau Gift Shop," and when I finally arrived, I discovered that, being one of the few clean, fresh water bodies in the area, it was a popular swimming and fishing site. |
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| This is a picture of the site where his cabin stood. I was a little surprised to notice train tracks running almost right next to the pond on the south side, but the sign near the cabin pointed out that even in the mid 1800s when Thoreau lived there, there were train tracks running along the pond and by the time he built his cabin, much of the forest around the pond had been cut down and used to power the wood-furnace locomotive. That same sign also pointed out that his cabin was a short thirty minute walk from his mother's house -- a third the time it takes to walk around the pond. Needless to say, my respect for his "retreat" to nature was severely lessened. Apparently, accept for the aforementioned Thoreau Gift Shop," not much has changed in the past hundred and fifty or so years. |
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After making it 95% of the way around the pond, I came to this dead end, and since I didn't have appropriate shoes for walking through the water, I had to turn around and walk almost half the way back before I found a place to go up to the street and walk around, this ending my short detour to this famous pond. |