Sunday

We decided to let the lemonade stand rest for two days. Sometimes people start to appreciate things more once they are gone. We used the morning to check out the “waffle shop”, a restaurant, initiated by artist Jon Rubin, which produces and broadcasts a live-streaming talk show with its customers. Before we could enter the shop, we were approached by Erin, who seems to be well known locally for riding around on his car bike, which is a bike that has a car bumper attached to the handles. Erin, who tries to raise awareness for how easy bikers get into accidents because cars don’t give them enough space on the road, is a regular on the talk show in the waffle shop. Before we went into the waffle shop, Erin insisted on taking some pictures with Louis, so Louis would remember him, once he grew up and promised him to build him a Spiderman customized car bike some day.

The waffle shop consists of a counter, a stage, and tables. When we entered (at 10 am Sunday morning) the tables were all occupied by families with kids, while the counter with students and the stage with 2 girls who were trying to set up a microphone. The atmosphere was very lively.

We sat down, ordered a classic and an omlette waffle and then watched how Erin took the stage.

Unfortunately the acoustics of the life broadcast were pretty bad, so it was hard to understand what host and guest were talking about. After 10 minutes, the next “show” went on, a new host interviewed a young man, dressed in black shoes, pants, shirt and skinny necktie with long hair, who was a bassist.

After that, we followed Mrs. Jones advice and attended a church service at the Saint Benedict the Moore Catholic Church, which “is an African-American community that celebrates the Gospel of Christ by welcoming the stranger among us”. It was great to see some people in traditional African clothes, the colors, the patterns, the head wraps… Unfortunately half an hour into the service another wicked wave of the stomach flu hit again, so we had to leave.

Later in the afternoon one of us went to the Urban Green Growth Collaborative Cookout at Mellon Park and talked to Liana, an activist from Pittsburgh who has spent a lot of time in Larimer and runs an initiative called Get Larimer.