Google Street View is helping me catch up with Belvidere. This is better than actually driving down the main drag, because I can go slow enough to really gawk at everything, instead of trying to catch the changes at 30MPH while simultaneously avoiding oncoming traffic and refereeing a backseat argument of Tony and Dominic's.

It looks like my parents have added a fence around the house and planted some trees out front. Man, I never realized how tiny the house was. It's like one of those dinky two-story houses you see on Kentucky St, one room wide and custom-made for a malnourished pioneer family. The house was once a grocery with living quarters on the second floor, and we found crates and old merchandising stuff in the crawlspace under the bathroom addition, just off the regular basement. I'd put the square footage at about 980.

I also never realized how tiny Belvidere is, as a town. Seriously, it would take about 45 minutes to stroll from one end to the other. I'm going south on State St. right now, trying to figure out if the little diner by the fire station is still in business.