Treasure Hunt

We asked Carter what he wanted to do today, his first full day home with no baseball, no work, no camping or hiking. We said he could do anything from vegging on the couch to golfing. He chose treasure hunting.

OK, that's our glamorous way of saying we went to the flea market! (Yes, he is his mother's son.) It's turned into an annual excursion for the two of us. Once a summer we head south 20-some miles to Adams and see if we can find anything we need... er want... er think we should have.

Today we almost did need a treasure map to get there, though. Since we haven't gone south this summer, I didn't know about a bridge out on the way and the subsequent detour -- which added a total of 19 miles onto our trip. By that point, we hoped the trip would be worth it.

We both had our own missions in mind. Carter wants to add to his growing license plate collection and I wanted to grab some Amish Cashew Crunch. Mine was easy since the people selling it always sit in the same spot. Carter, however, had a challenging day.

The first booth he saw some old Wisconsin plates, including a tractor one. He wanted to jump on that but I said maybe we should see what else we find. After walking around pretty much everywhere, we were almost going to give up.Then he found some awesome license plates from a $2 Missouri one to a $75 Alaskan one shaped like a bear. That was way cool. And waaaaay out of our budget. He picked 3 -- the Missouri one, a Bahamas one and a Cayman Island one -- and negotiated his own deal for them. He's getting the hang of that.

On the way home, knowing about the detour, I took a shorter route that got us back to the main highway sooner and landed us in the town of Rome for some ice cream. It just works out that way every time we do this! And it was a great way to wrap up our mother-son time.

Got home and hubby's back was still bothering him. So we opted not to drive up to Wausau to see our nephew Colin race. Instead, Carter went with some friends to see the Batman movie and I watched the Olympics while Jim alternated icing his back and stretching it and resting it.

Obviously, we're all up too late, too. Good thing tomorrow's a day of rest!