Walker wanted to sit down and have “class” with everyone after dinner. The upside to this was that he gave his famous Emily Dickinson lecture. So we gathered in the living room at Nine Mountain and sat around the circle-shaped carpet.

He began with giving some general background about her life. This eventually led to his bringing up her correspondence with certain individuals.

Which meant we got to hear the Emily Dickinson Voice.

If one has not heard Walker’s impression of Emily Dickinson’s “soft, breathless voice” which he uses to orate her great plethora of metaphors that comprised her letters, one must certainly do so immediately. He does this when he reads from the collections of letters that she sent to other people, seeing as sister Lavinia burned all of the letters that E.D. saved in a drawer of the same bureau in which she kept her poetry. I might suggest having a copy on hand in case Walker does not have his own handy. Regardless, it is the best reading of what some might consider to be the more mundane side of things.

It was worth it. Really.

We took a drive to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in order to see Arrowhead Farm – where Melville lived for several years and where he finished his epic Moby Dick. The group that now owns the house opened it especially for us, as have several other groups at other places that we have visited.

The only problem with the place is that I really don’t think that the house looked anything at all like it did when Melville was there. Our tour guide – who was very passionate about her subject and did have many interesting things to tell about Melville – also kept telling us about everything that had been altered since then, and I’m not sure that there was as much of Melville left in that house as one would think.

Our guide was also a bit comical. There were a few items that had been removed from the house by the staff during the off-season for some reason or another, and she was always instantly flabbergasted the moment she realized that they weren’t there. She even tracked down one of the other staff members to inquire about a missing picture.

But the landscape around the place was amazing, though a lot of it was not the same landscape that Melville saw. There were trees near the farmhouse that were huge and absolutely breathtaking. The best part of it, though, was the view of the mountains from the window of what was Melville’s study. They say that the shape of Mt. Greylock reminded him of a whale and was part of the inspiration behind Moby Dick. I don’t know whether or not I believe that – seems to be stretching it a little. But I could certainly see why that landscape could provide a successful and inspirational writing environment. I wouldn’t mind having a view like that some time.

Our group was allowed to do what many college students would probably never even think of doing, and that was a tour of a portion of the Harvard library – where many important manuscripts are kept relevant to the authors that we are studying.

In the Emily Dickinson room, they had the family’s collection of books, as well as some furniture from the house such as Emily’s desk, piano, and the chest of drawers in which her poems were discovered. The woman who was giving us the tour had also set out some of the manuscripts of her poems in a glass case in the John Keats room. I stood there and read “After great pain, a formal feeling comes” in her peculiar scrawl. Her handwriting was absolutely fascinating. It made me wonder if she was right- or left-handed, but I have not yet found the answer. And one could see the small pinholes where she had sewn the poems together into little booklets.

Then we were taken into a little conference room where our guide had selected other manuscripts for us to view. When we first arrived, she asked some of us to read a little from each book to see if we could identify whom it had once belonged to. The total of what we saw included a Bible translated into a Native American language by John Eliot, some of Longfellow’s notes, a journal from Melville, a journal from Thoreau, a journal from Bronson Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s manuscript version of The House of the Seven Gables, Emerson’s journal pertaining to Margaret Fuller, and a volume from the collection of Margaret Fuller’s correspondence which took place in multiple languages.

We were allowed to browse through them for a little bit, turning the pages as we so desired. The printed text of a writer can be powerful in its own right, but there was something about viewing those manuscripts and the handwritten words that struck a different chord, for what we saw were the words of these writers as truly their words. We could see a little more into their writing and how their individual script contributed – in its own way – to building the personality of the work. Thoreau’s journal was almost impossible to read, so sloppy yet innately boyish was his handwriting. Bronson Alcott’s looked as though it had been manufactured and printed, so neatly rendered were his words. Melville and Hawthorne shared a similar style of compacted writing. Emerson was a little bit easier to read than Thoreau, but his handwriting was also larger and somewhat messier. Maybe it was a Transcendentalist thing.

In any case, we all stayed there until our guide practically had to throw us out. But I was glad that we were able to see the manuscripts, mainly because one does not get to do something like that every day, but also because it was worthwhile to see the handwritten work that these authors produced in their lifetimes. It provides us a sort of connection to the past.

The Freedom Trail walking tour was kind of fun. We were led around by a woman role-playing as Hannah Adams – the first American female career-writer. She was very energetic and bribed us to answer her questions with Blow-Pops. I’m not sure if there was anything particularly “literary” about it, but it was fun. Bostonians are very proud of their city’s being the “Birthplace of Independence,” or so it would seem.

We also took a detour to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts to peruse an Edward Hopper exhibit – also not very literary, but at least artsy. I liked how some of his works are somewhat “cinematic” – but that could just be the film geek in me showing through.

Melville still has a niche on Nantucket Island after all. And it is the whaling museum. We watched two presentations there, and then had time to wander through the exhibits. At every corner I halfway expected to see him (or his ghost) sitting in a chair and writing in a journal or something. A man from the museum told us the story of the Essex Gam, and he was a great storyteller. The other speaker from the museum had an interesting presentation on whaling, and his explanations reminded me of the chapters about the ship from Moby Dick.

But I think that might be the only place on Nantucket Island where Melville could still feel as though he belonged.

Today was our first day without places to be in the morning, so a group of us decided to sleep a little longer and then go out for brunch. After that, Beka, Isaac, Dawn, Alicia and I debated whether or not to go rent bikes for the afternoon and take our own tour of part of Nantucket Island. The weather was still chilly, and there had been a misting rain off and on all morning. But we came back to the house and checked the radar to see no more of the nor'easter coming our way. So we set off for the center of town and a bicycle rental shop.

At the shop, the proprietor fitted the five of us for bicycles and sent us on our way with a particular path in mind. He told us it was ideal and that it would be a two-hour trip. It misted rain on us for a little bit, but then we got out of town and onto the path, and away we went.

It was interesting to see what Nantucket Island has become since the likes of Melville frequented the place. I don't know that he would be invitied here if he were alive today. Let's just say that I don't think I know anyone who could afford to live here. And we passed by several homes just out in the middle of the island, situated along the bike path. But the rural regions were quite picturesque. Of course, I didn't take as many pictures as I would have otherwise, mainly because I can't drive a bicycle and use a camera at the same time. I ran into the same problem in Germany last summer...

But as we were riding, several of us kept asking those with the maps and directions just how long it was going to be before we made it halfway along the trail. It seemed that our little bike path kept getting longer and longer. We ran into Dr. Rutledge and Belita at one point. They were both on a tour, and Dr. Rutledge's comment was, "Wow, you folks have come pretty far out."

As we started the return trip, I started to get a little worried. The legs were beginning to feel a little heavy and it was getting a little colder. I was starting to fade pretty quickly, and started to feel a little shaky.

We took a break and I, thankfully, had some crackers in my backpack. After that I was better. We got our second or third or fifteenth wind during the last part of the trip, and came successfully back into town and returned the bike.

That's when we started thinking and calculating. Apparently the guy at the bike shop sent us on the 18-20 mile bike path. Go figure.

My knees are going to hate me later.

Today we left the Friendly Crossway hostel and headed for Plymouth. Our intention was to visit Plimoth Plantation and see Plymouth Rock before journeying to Hyannis to ride a ferry boat to Nantucket Island where we're going to be for the next two days.

The rain seemed to follow us along the highway this morning, and the temperature never seemed to warm up. And there was wind. All in all, the day wasn't that fantastic. For many of us, this was our first experience with what the locals call a "nor'easter."

At the plantation, the exhibits were mostly outdoors. Wandering around the re-created settlement in the freezing rain and cold gave one a new appreciation for what the pilgrims had to endure. Part of the plantation involved touring the Mayflower II -- a recreated version of the Mayflower. Imagine fourteen people precariously perched on a steep incline that led to the main deck of the ship, gripping slick metal handrails in an attempt to keep from slipping and sliding. All the while the wind was whipping around us and groups of school-aged kids milled about as the rain poured. We were in and out of the rain as we moved from room to room and deck to deck on the ship, finally ending up on another steep incline that we had to go down to get off the ship. I'll admit it. My feet almost went out from under me.

In any case, I am quite thankful to now be sitting in the warm, dry house that we'll be staying in for the next two nights. I'm quite satisfied not to be a pilgrim or a person role-playing a pilgrim.

I think our initial weather reports and advice was a little on the misleading side. Regardless whether this is true or not, I was cold today. We were visiting Salem in order to see the House of Seven Gables and the Salem Witch Museum, of course. I don't think the weather ever reached the temp that was predicted by the people that operate weather.com, and it was cloudy and windy. I was in a long-sleeved shirt and jacket, with a t-shirt underneath all of that, and I was still cold.

So during our free time I decided to go on a search for warmer clothing, having not packed anything (rather stupid of me) with head protection. Taking the suggestion from Rebekah and Isaac, I found a store in a little pedestrian mall that sold hoodies for $15. The selection was not spectacular, but it was warm clothing with a hood. My goal was to find something in a small size that wasn't pink, and I managed to do just that.

Of course, the tradeoff was that I must now perpetuate the absolute kitsch that has come out of Salem's history. The hoodie is gray and has "Salem, Massachusetts" printed on the front in black. Also printed on the front is the silhouette of a witch on a broomstick and the phrase: "A wicked good time." Part of me hates perpetuating the kitsch.

But at least I'm a little warmer now.

One of the things that I like about traveling is that you never really know whom you might come across and how one’s various interests can come into play at the same time.

Today we were in Gloucester, Massachusetts. We went whale-watching today, searching for the Ishmael within, I suppose. The trip was fun – if a bit cold and windy at times – and we were lucky because the whales were being unseasonably active, which meant many missed photo opportunities.

But the other thing that kept grabbing my attention was what appeared to be a woman with who I figured were her parents that were on board. I could just barely hear them speaking over the din of the boat’s engine, but it did not sound as though they were speaking English. I kept listening but I couldn’t initially make out what language they were speaking.

Then I heard a word that I recognized: zurückfahren. They were speaking German. As we began the return trip to the dock, I stepped outside and saw that the woman was standing outside by herself, so I walked up to her and said hello auf Deutsch. And she answered me. It took several minutes for it to kick in that I was standing on the side of a boat coasting through the Atlantic having a conversation with a woman from Germany in German. I found out that she was from Stuttgart (in southern Germany) and was on vacation with her parents. I told her a little about our class trip, and she was curious about why I had started learning German. We talked until we were both freezing and had to go inside the cabin to warm up.

It seemed a little funny. I am on a trip to study the relevance of historical locations to American literature, and I find myself using German. I don’t guess I was really expecting that kind of opportunity.

"To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake....We must learn to keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn." -- Henry David Thoreau, Walden

While we were exploring the Concord Museum, I kept coming back to the Thoreau collection and the room where the above quote was posted on the wall. I stood in the room for several minutes, reading the printed quotes from Thoreau, studying the small, green, nondescript desk in front of me on which the sum of Thoreau's work -- as I understood it -- was written, and thinking. Because thinking on a trip like this is always a good thing, right?

It seems like it is very easy to fall asleep sometimes, that it is simpler to somehow disengage and let things pass by either without really noting them or seeing them and just not reacting to them. Maybe we never are completely awake. Maybe we never really can be. Awake implies awareness, consciousness -- an active participant as opposed to the passive spectator. Perhaps Thoreau was expecting too much of people.

But I like his idea about the expectation of the dawn. The dawn suggests the coming of light. Perhaps Thoreau understood this as the coming of enlightenment, that eventually those who tried would eventually "wake up" to their full awareness of the world. And awareness is certainly not a bad thing, right? In any case, I lke his more positive notion of the expectation of dawn, the dark night to give way to the coming of daylight. Another day to bring with it new experiences.

But I'm not a philosopher. Maybe I'm in over my head.