Well the city council has decided to put it back on the agenda for Feb 16 where they will hear public input and vote.
We are on a chicken rollercoaster.
We are getting very indifferent on the issue. Either situation isn’t completely desireable. The current code isn’t good but the proposed code is almost worse because of all the micromanagement and bureaucracy.
Reminds me of a saying. “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.'”
Britton and I took a few days off work and today we decided to take a bike ride through Greeley. We thought about taking the Poudre Trail, but had a few errands to run, like picking up fresh tortillas at the tortilleria and stopping by the library for some movies I had on hold. So, instead we ended up touring Greeley. First we stopped at Houston Gardens on the corner of 4th Street and 23rd Avenues.
While this is a pretty busy intersection, you would never guess that there is this beautiful garden and natural habitat hidden right there in town. It is open to the public most days of the week except Sunday and Monday and was an original homestead in the area. It was really cool. My dad said that when he owned his lawn business he used to mow there. I thought it was pretty neat and had wanted to visit there for some time, but their hours were always the same as our work time and Saturdays are usually so filled with chores that we never thought to stop. When you travel by bike and don’t have to work, life is much slower and detours like this are welcome (so are more bike lanes!).
Side note: Because we weren’t expecting to “tour” Greeley, these pics were taken with Britton’s cell phone and not our usual camera, so they might not be as clear.
Houston Gardens in Greeley
On my bike in Houston Gardens
Our second stop was to visit with my parents. They seemed to be doing pretty good although I still worry about my dad’s health. Mom was working on painting the house and Justin (my brother) was looking for a job in addition to his landscaping business since winter is coming upon us.
Next up on the tour was a short ride over to the tortilleria Los Comales for some freshly made tortillas and some hot sauce. I always try to get Britton to go inside to practice his Spanish and he had fun with it today. Then about 4 blocks down we rode through Lincoln Park and went to the library to pick up some movies I had on hold.
I thought we would just ride home from there, but hey, we had TIME and the day was unusually warm (high 60s) after the snow. So Britton wanted to ride over to Glenmere Park. Glenmere is a really nice old area in Greeley with some homes that have a lot of history to them and is located pretty close to the University’s campus. It is also quite the ride by bike from our house, but hey ok.
The lake at Glenmere
We rode around through the fallen leaves admiring the houses, gazebo, pond and trees and decided to go to the bird sanctuary there. Britton and his friends used to ride their bikes there all the time when he was young and I remember going along with my dad when he took care of some lawns near there.
Britton with his bike in Glenmere
We then rode past my grandma’s old house and what Britton called “Witches Alley”. My brother Justin and I used to dare each other to run up this dark scary alley when we would stay with my grandma, and usually we could only make it half-way, even in the daytime, let alone at night. It’s funny that Britton thought it was a haunted alley as well and we didn’t meet until much later.
We passed the hospital and rode past a house that we are hoping will be our final rental and first paid for house. It is our final step to Puerto Rico.
Finally we rode home and whistled at my mom as she was priming the house and fought a head wind all the way back. I held on to Britton’s backpack filled with tortillas, movies and memories. It is nice to have a day to live instead of making a “living”.
Today with Leadership Weld County, I went on a tour of Greeley where we discussed the culture of the area. It was a cold day, and even began to snow! We started the day at Centennial Village. Centennial Village is a museum recreation of what it would be like to live in Greeley in the late 1800s. They have moved in all sorts of old buildings like houses, an old church, a one-room schoolhouse, even a small train station. Inside of these buildings they have all sorts of artifacts from that time period. When I was a kid I was in a program where we dressed and acted like kids from 100 years earlier including using the slate boards to write.
We reviewed Greeley’s history. It was a community with a Utopian vision built on these values: temperance (these old no-drinking laws remained on the books until 1969 in Greeley!), religion, education, agriculture, irrigation, cooperation, and family values. In order to be part of the Union Colony, as Greeley was called at that time, you had to apply to come out and pay a share of money. Nathan Meeker was the main founder of the community, but his life ended unfortunately when he ended up getting scalped by American Indians. His house is still in Greeley as a museum as well.
Then we drove over to the Chamber of Commerce and walked to the Greeley Museum and learned about Rattlesnake Kate and her famous dress made from 140 rattlesnakes she killed, skinned and sewed into a flapper-style dress as well as hearing about other famous people in Greeley’s history.
Me and Jamie with some old unicycles
Next on the tour was the Weld County Courthouse. We got to see some of the architecture and heard stories of the ghosts that reside there including one of someone who was hanged out on the lawn of the courthouse. We also heard about drug court which sounds like a very good program that Weld County is proud to have.
Next up, we walked to the Union Colony Dinner Theatre, then off to the Union Colony Civic Center. This was quite impressive as we were able to go behind the scenes. We even got to go into the powder room that Lyle Lovett will be in tomorrow night. We climbed the catwalks and played with the spotlight. It is quite a thing to put on a show!
Overall, a lot of the information I had already heard, but there were some things, like the catwalk and some of the old courtrooms I had never seen or done before. It was really neat remembering how and why this area exists.
Today we took our niece and nephew out to lunch at JBs Drive-In and then went out go-cart racing to Kart Attack with them JBs has been a Greeley tradition for many, many years and is one of the few remaining true drive-ins. Because it was so hot today, we decided to go inside for our food which included their famous corn dogs but also root beer floats and other treats. JBs is interesting because they are ONLY open in the summer and close for the winter season.
JB’s Drive In
Calling for our food to be delivered to our table
Then we went out go-cart racing. The place was called Kart Attack which we thought was funny. We took two sessions around the track. It was pretty fun and it reminded me of when I was a kid and my dad and I would play “hookie” and play at the go-cart tracks.
The go-cart track
Playing around
Getting ready to GO!