A Trip to Belvidere

On Sunday, the sun was shining, the very last farmer's market of the season was calling, and we had an important errand to run, which meant a drive all the way to Belvidere (60 miles). So we piled into the car and stopped for crepes before we began our roadtrip.

The market was crowded, and the line for crepes was long. The croissants looked pretty tasty, though.




We ran into friends and their babies.



Bellies full, we piled back into the car and drove away. Our errand? To buy overalls. Apparently, it's very difficult to find overalls in larger sizes, like beyond 5T. I called everyone I could think of: OshKosh, Gap, Old Navy, Target, Kohl's. The reason? Max and Otto are dressing up as Mario and Luigi for Halloween. We have done this before, and we have the red and green shirts, the white gloves, we bought fleece to make the hats. I thought the overalls part would be pretty simple, and Max has a pair from last year, but they are too small for him now. So after at least an hour on the phone, calling all the above stores, and after a quick trip out to some local thrift stores to see if by chance there were any on the racks there (there were not), Martin suddenly asked, "What about Farm and Fleet?"

Of course.



He looked up a few locations, and found this one in Belvidere, where we had been about a month ago on our way apple picking. We remembered the cute coffee shop and little downtown there and thought that would be enough to make our visit worthwhile.

Unfortunately, it was closed. As was the neighboring candy shop. The attached bakery was still open, and we stopped in for pie and apple fritters, but the owner made us feel weird when we asked about the coffee shop. We remembered that he had made us feel weird on our previous visit as well. Martin was extremely disappointed with our excursion ending on such a down note, but I am pretty sure we all had fun, despite any disappointment of closed candy stores.



I think it is more disappointing for Martin because he only has the two weekend days to feel like he can do these sorts of things, and he is more prone to feeling like we didn't "seize" them if they didn't turn out as well as he had hoped. He had also mentioned "running around in nature" several times along the drive, and hoped we would stumble upon some beautiful field or forrest or lake or something similar, so when that did not manifest, I think he felt the whole trip was a disappointment.

But hey, we got overalls, which made the boys happy. And there were big pictures painted on the sides of the buildings, which made for funny portraits.