You *Can* Go Back

We went on a short road trip this week, and since we weren't too far from it, we swung by to see a house my family rented almost 30 years ago.

We only lived there for about 10 months- Dad had a short term training assignment- but we lived in the coolest old Victorian house during that time.

I was happy to see that the house is still there and looking pretty good. Though I will admit it's a bit shorter than I remember, and the barn is closer to the house than I remember.

I'm sure that has nothing to do with me getting taller and my legs getting longer :)

 I do remember the barn being white, though.

This really was a great house for kids: there's a walkup attic (my parents just stored empty boxes up there, but we had fun playing up there), a dumbwaiter, a front stairway and a back stairway, a scary cellar, a big barn (that we weren't allowed in because the owners had stuff stored there), woods to play in, and a river at the bottom of the hill.

In the late fall the river flooded, and while most of the water receded, a giant puddle remained that then froze over. When it snowed, we had a game of seeing who could sled down the hill and go the farthest. My older brother made it almost to the river's edge one time, but most of the time we usually just went as far as the frozen puddle.

There were sugar maples on the property that we tapped, then we boiled the sap on the the wood stove in the scary cellar and made our own maple syrup.

We also stopped by the elementary school my brother and I attended, and it's still there, and still just as small (preK-4), no portable classroom units or expansions. That probably has a lot to do with the size of the town, though- it was small when we lived there and it hasn't gotten any bigger.

I've had the chance to visit several of our old homes, and this one was the least disappointing :)

Have you gone back to a house you lived in many years ago?