I was bummed that the forecast called for rain on the days that we'd be visiting and kept hoping that it would change. It didn't. But thankfully, it was mostly just sprinkling. Our first stop on campus was Angell Hall - my home for my freshman and sophomore years.
Andy lived not too far away in Coate Hall.
We walked through Whitney Center, which was where the main dining hall was. A couple of other residence halls were torn down with newer, bigger buildings up in their place. It was definitely a mixture of old and new. The clock tower is still the same.
We were excited to go into Cartwright Center (the building behind this garden). It was the main student union. I worked at the information counter there my senior year. However, when we went inside, we were surprised to find it empty and that most of it had been turned into a gymnastics gym.
Some of the familiar seating was still there. Andy recalled his many naps taken on that furniture. If you look behind him to the level below, you can see some of the gymnastics equipment. There used to be restaurants and tables and people everywhere. It felt so strange for it to be so quiet in there.
I was a psychology major and Andy was a psychology minor and many of our classes were housed in this building.
Here we are in a similar spot on our graduation day back in May 2002.
The kids thought the raindrops on the leaf were pretty.
We explored some more on campus and discovered a new union building, which looked awesome. It was around this time that we all started to get a little hungry. And our time was starting to run out in our two hours parking spot, so we ventured out for some food. I originally imagined eating on campus, but the union was so unfamiliar that we didn't feel like it. So we went to an old favorite: Pizza Doctors!
I keep these story cubes in my purse and they came out while we waited for our pizza. We heard lots of stories while we waited.
And Graydon must have said something funny to make Bella laugh so hard.
After lunch, we ventured to some other areas of town. Here we are at Riverside Park, right along the Mississippi River.
This is the park where Andy and I got engaged. We tried to find the exact bench, but neither of us could quite remember where we were. We got engaged in December, at night, and there was snow on the ground, so everything looked a little different.
These little statues are new.
The mascot of UW-La Crosse is the Eagles.
Potty stop.
We drove by our off-campus houses where each of us lived our senior years and then went by our first apartment where we lived after we got married. We lived in the upstairs apartment of this house. By the looks of it, nothing has changed; though is looks like it could use a little TLC.
I was really excited to take the kids to the top of Grandad Bluff and couldn't help my disappointment in the fog.
On a clear day, this is what the bluff looks like. (I found this photo online). This was the view out my dorm window my junior year when I was an RA in Reuter Hall.
This is the view from the top on a clear, fall day. (Another online photo I found). This is the tallest bluff in the city and when you're up there, you can see Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa.
What we ended up with was still a fun experience, just not what I was envisioning when I thought about taking the kids here.
It was super foggy at first, but did clear some as we stood there.
Our drive back down was pretty.
Before heading back to our hotel for some pool time, we made one more stop on campus.
That evening, we ventured downtown and saw a movie at the Rivoli. I found it so comforting that exactly nothing about this movie theater had changed. We ate dinner there while watching Ant Man and the Wasp.
The next morning, we went back to the downtown area for a little more exploring and some shopping. All. The. Cheese.
We settled in for some coffee, smoothies, and story cubes at The Pearl coffee shop.
And then we went to the ice cream shop.
They sell candy on the other side. This place always reminded me of the candy store in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.
Then we went back to the hotel for more pool time. I think we went swimming on at least four different occasions.
That evening, we went to dinner at the Brockberg's house. If we had more time, we would have tried to meet up with some more college friends who stuck around. Maybe another time. But we had so much fun reconnecting with the Brockbergs and getting to know their children a little better. We headed home that next morning. Thankfully, we still had a few days of Fall Break left when we got back. As much as it's fun to travel, we all enjoy our down time too.
It was fun to walk down memory lane and reminisce about the old days. College was a fun time for both of us, and these days are even better. We are so thankful for the life God has given us then and today.
