After our first night in the hotel in Loveland, we decided to head to Greeley for day 2. As we drove in, I was thinking that I would remember a little more along the way, but of course, a lot has changed in 20 years. We found the right street, and drove by the old house.
Here is looking up the street we used to live on:
In this picture Saul had to get out to get a good shot through the trees. He groused about how I was making the suspicious looking Mexican do the stalker work and he would probably get deported. But now we get a good picture of the old house!
They had sheds where our garden used to be -- definitely doesn't look as nice as it did.
I did remember the way to Monfort. It looks exactly the same as it did in our day, although the playground equipment had been upgraded.
For lunch we decided to try JBs. They still had their homemade root beer, but I was disappointed to see a new menu that did not have any nachos on it! Their nachos used to be my favorite! The food was mediocre, but the restaurant was just as I had remembered it.
Remember that old player piano? It was broken, but still there:
And the phones to place your order were still there too. Saul couldn't hear the person on the other line very well, so when she asked how many mugs we wanted with our rootbeer, he said "No, thanks." A waitress came over and straightened everything out, but we thought it was pretty funny that Saul wanted us to drink straight out of the jug. FYI: the rootbeer was very good.
We then went on an adventure to go to the "goose poop" park that I had remembered. Turns out the real name is Sanborn park (which mom, dad, and myself could not remember for the life of us).
They still had the baby swings in the far corner, but instead of gravel or mulch underneath, they had that fancy rubber springy stuff.
Overall, it was really fun to see Greeley again. Everything was smaller and closer together than I remember it being, but I guess after living in Houston, it changes your perspective. All of those places in town that I thought were so far away were usually less than 5 streets away! Amazing! Also, so much has changed there. A lot of new growth, the Country General is now a string of car dealerships, Carmike Cinemas is now among a bunch of other businesses instead of being by itself, etc.. But the weather when we were there was perfect, there were no crowds or traffic, and Saul and I decided that we wouldn't mind getting a summer home there. We want to join the Texans that Mom and Dad say own half of Colorado!
You'll notice that at this point the coats had come off. One of the rangers told us we would need coats once we were out there, but we didn't. It was cool, but once you started hiking, it was the perfect temperature. We kept the baby warm though with a blanket and warm clothes.
