We spent the night at the Hampton Inn in Belmont, which was a deliberate choice because Belmont is where I spent the first very formative years of my working career and I wanted to show my younger boys around a bit. I've passed through a few times and seen the physical effects of things we were working on back in the 1990s, but I was really blown away by what we saw on Saturday afternoon as we drove down Main Street. Restaurants and shops were bustling. Stowe Park was full of people. Even the basketball court on the east side of town was full of apparently teenage kids of all persuasions playing, watching, and/or waiting to play.

Most of what I witnessed was what my employers and colleagues had in mind. But it seems to have blossomed into much more than what we had imagined. To say it did my heart good is an understatement.

The Uptown experience continues to impress every time as well. Traffic is still what it is (but if you know enough to make use of "short cuts" and back roads you can still avoid the "sitting still" kind of snarls).

Lived there from 1993 to 2000 and fell in love with it. All that while the city/metro area was doubling in size. I joke that I was actually part of that "problem" (for folks who were alarmed by the rapid changes), but professionally I did what I could to absorb it and make it work.

Onward and upward!