August 16, 2015 Here’s the back story. Daughter #2, Heather, had recently finished an internship and secured a real job as an archaeologist in Canyon de Chelly National Park in Arizona. Hurrah for gainful employment! She had been doing some pretty cool stuff. All of Heather’s friends from whom she had been bumming rides were heading back to their colleges or hometown, so Heather needed her car. Now a logical person would either a) tell Heather to fly home and pick up her car, or b) tell her to buy a used one locally, or c) find someone or some service to drive her Toyota to Arizona. Instead, we decided on a late summer adventure. We drove Heather’s car out to her and flew back. According to Google Maps, the trip was 2458 miles in 36 hours at an average of 68.28 mph. Three hard days? Three days of blurred interstate signs, monotonous rest stop food, mindlessly following taillights, brutal tedium. I wished it was the beginning of the summer, and we had four weeks to travel the Blue Highways or bring Thor, our golden retriever, along and do our version of Travels with Charlie, but we only had a week. Thoughts of this project/trip had been brewing for the previous three years. It started one day when I Googled “Concord” and was amazed at the number of places that share my hometown’s name. There are Concords everywhere! The largest is Concord CA, followed by Concord, North Carolina and Concord, New Hampshire. I started wondering what all these Concords have in common? Was there some connection to the original Concord - Concord MA? Were the first settlers looking to find a bit of peace and quiet? Does the name fit today? My curiosity grew as I continued to learn about my own town’s history. I became a licensed town guide. I studied our local history, but still, all those other Concords, those Concords with a population of 21, those Concords that no one has ever heard of, enchanted me. So here was our project. Liz and I delivered Heather her car, but we paused to visit as many towns named Concord as we could squeeze in during our five days on the road. Truth be told, Liz wasn’t too keen on this. She preferred just getting there quickly and spending time with The Darling Daughter, but Liz was a good sport, at least as we set off. Was there concord or discord as we turned a 2500 mile trip into a 3500+ mile meander? Our first destinations were Concord NY and Concord PA.