Or, rather……rideabout. At 87, my mother finds traveling through the farmland in the Fall to be very satisfying. She is tired of seeing the constant upheaval from construction in our area, and complains that every inch of the world will be blacktopped over in her lifetime.
So, at least once a year, and sometimes more frequently, we load ourselves into the car and take off on a trip. Yesterday’s trip was a bit longer than she had expected, but we came home wit a vehicle so full that we couldn’t have stopped at one more shop.
We took off west out of the Chicago suburbs and when we hit the farmland, we turned south. Our first stop was at a huge farm discount store, to buy birdseed. We crossed over the Kankakee river and traveled a little further south before turning east.
One of her grand daughters lives in the area we were visiting, so we made a stop. I had a plate of Chocolate Almond cupcakes with fudge frosting to drop off, and we wanted to visit Granddaughter’s shop. She has wonderful country items, and she creates clothing and housewares with applique. We tried to buy her out, but she had a couple of thing left by the time I pulled Mother out the door.
On their recommendation, we had lunch at “The Polka Dot Diner.” It’s a fast food place that has both a drive up and interior seating, and the theme is 50s and 60s TV and movie memorabilia. Mother thought she was ordering a club sandwich, and ended up with a burger with bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayo. They were forgiven, when she pronounced the onion rings were excellent!
We were surrounded by James Dean, Beaver Cleaver, Rickie Nelson, Superman, Elvis, and a horde of other personalities.
Our next stop was a Ben Franklin store. We used to call them “five and dimes,” meaning that the items cost a nickle or a dime, but in times of gross inflation, that term no longer exists, and unfortunately, most of the Ben Franklin stores have disappeared too. I shopped for Halloweeen decorations, and Mother bought two red hats, seven yards of blue plaid flannel, and three huge pots of chrysanthemums.
She was flagging at that point, so we loaded our finds into the car, and headed home. My car made one brief detour. All on it’s very own, it turned into the parking lot of a quilt shop I had never visited. Since we were there, I HAD to go in, but it was a sign of how tired she was, that Mother chose to stay in the car. I made my stop very brief, and we finished our “walkabout,” driving home amid thousands of cars all seemingly headed to our house.
It was a really pleasant day. I’d like to do a couple of shorter versions of that trip for her, and we’ll do at least one, possibly two longer trips before winter closes in. We have a weekend trip to visit my youngest sister and her family in October, and I’m contemplating a trip up into Wisconsin to a town that has THREE quilt shops. Sounds like heaven to me…..farmland and quilt shops!