I went into the woods because ...

... I wished to follow in the footsteps of Henry David Thoreau. Of course, he lived in the woods around Concord, MA, for two years. I spent about two hours there at Walden Pond. In any case, here is what I saw: 

Above is a self-portrait (obviously) from a little ways up a hill from the cabin site. You can get a glimpse of the pond off toward the back left of the photo. The short wooden stakes in the ground represent the site of Thoreau's cabin.

This pile of rocks is to the left of the cabin site. This is what some people found in the early 1900s when the cabin site was first rediscovered. The sign quotes one of HDT's most famous lines from Walden: “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 had come to die Discover that I had not lived.”

A bathhouse and shoreline make the pond a popular attraction for swimmers, sunbathers, and the curious.

This is a view of the lake from the south side, I believe. The bathhouse is to the left. The man at the far right of the photo had just gone for a dip in the pond. He had a tattoo (not pictured).

The perimeter of the pond attracts pedestrians of all sorts. This jogger sprinted past me as I sauntered on the dirt path.

This dragonfly was attracted to my pink skirt. I was able to zoom in on it. I used to catch these "baby dragonflies" (as I called them) in a net when I was a kid.

This is a re-creation of the Thoreau cabin. As you see, it is one room with a window on either side (to the right of the bed and the left of the green desk). There was also a small woodshed at the back of the cabin.

Here's a video of some of the sites and sounds on the path: