Day 2 - April 2

It was cold when I woke up this morning. Just above freezing. And raining. It was one of those mornings when it would have been easy to stay in bed. But somebody asked me yesterday why I’m doing this, so it was fresh in my mind.

I started writing historical fiction because I love spending time in the late 1700s. I’ve been known to visit historical sites and not leave. The last time I was at Mount Vernon I stayed there for almost 9 hours. I brought a book, sat against a tree, and read. If it wasn’t for the lack of modern healthcare and plumbing, I think I could safely say I’d prefer to live back then. Time travel, of course, isn’t widely available (yet!). So I started doing the next thing: writing. Writing historical fiction lets me time travel every morning for a few hours. Because my book is done, I needed something else. So now I’m walking in the steps of the Continental Army for 15 miles a day. And they wouldn’t have been able to sleep in just because the weather wasn’t idea. Neither did I.

When the British evacuated Boston 250 years ago, the soldiers of the Continental Army were excited to march to New York. In an era when most people didn’t travel more than a few miles from where they were born, marching into the unknown was an adventure. Some of them even wrote home asking for new shoes. I was excited leading up to this walk too. And walking through Boston on the first day exceeded my expectations. Today I passed through some more generic towns without a lot of marked revolutionary-era history. This, coupled with the cold, dampered my enthusiasm. I thought of the soldiers, marching on a dirt road. Sleeping in the swamps. I’d bet their enthusiasm lagged too.

Picture of the day:

Apparently more than one kind of kind of Patriot is common on the Boston Post Road.

If you haven’t done it yet, sign up to get my new upcoming book for free. It’s historical fiction set in the American Revolution, but with a real life historical super hero. Think of Batman in a tricorn hat! It’s fun.