Food!

Yesterday and today were all about food.  Well, my expenses were all about food.

Yesterday, if you'll remember, I'd volunteered to help drive The Son's class on one of their Geology field trips.  It took us 2.5 hours to get there, we spent a glorious 3 hours digging in the dirt, and then spent another 3+ hours getting back.  It took so long to get back to the school because it was Friday afternoon just before a long weekend and traffic was miserable -- though not quite as miserable as the next leg of our trip, out of town into the 'burbs.  That Friday late-afternoon adventure was beyond miserable.

I didn't spend any money until we were 10 minutes away from home.  I bought The Son dinner at a burger joint that shall remain unnamed because it's a regional outfit.

Burger Joint -- $6.94 for two burgers and a root beer float

~ ~ o o O o o ~ ~

Today The Son and I ventured back into the city to go to an annual food festival held in a downtown city park.  Local restaurants and vendors set up booths and cook food for three days.  Mixed in are booths with arts and crafts, vendor demos, a concert stage, and cold drinks and alcohol.    It's generally the type of thing I avoid at all costs -- mostly because it's hot, crowded, noisy, expensive, and parking is non-existent.  And because when I do mention it to the kids no one seems particularly interested.  But this year The Son was game so we quickly hatched our plan, asked The Husband for some cash, and off we went.

Hoping to avoid the hassle and expense of parking, we drove to a nearby Park and Ride lot and caught a bus downtown.  Turned out that it was an express bus, though, and express buses are more expensive than other buses.  Round trip for the two of us was $10.50!  That's more than parking probably would have cost.  And we had to wait nearly 45 minutes for the bus on our return trip.  Still, I'd probably do it the same way again.  It was fun, relatively stress-free, and we enjoyed each others company.

The Son loves food and is generally open to trying new things -- particularly if they don't involve vegetables.  And this morning he took his appetite.  As soon as we got to the festival, I bought two books of tickets (16 tickets total) assuming that he'd eat his way through those and we'd go back for more.

I handed him the tickets, explained the layout of the land, and then let him loose.  He decided to eat an entire meal of samples.  Samples ran from 1 to 3 tickets and ranged a bit in size from booth to booth but were for the most part quite generous.  He tried everything from an Indian curried chicken and a 1/4 of a buffalo burger to gelato and a frozen cream puff -- and everything in between.  By the time he'd spent all but two of his tickets, we'd made a full circle through the food and artisan booths and he decided he didn't need any additional tickets.  He had to sit and ponder for a minute about how best to use his last two tickets.  He finally decided to go with a second serving of gelato -- a booth with particularly generous servings and arguably an excellent way to finish a festival of food.  His first gelato serving was lemon but he went with strawberry banana for his final selection.

At that point, we were both ready to go.  We decided to walk the 14 or so blocks back to the bus terminal and thankfully a full belly slowed The Son's impossibly long stride down to something I could keep up with without having to trot.

So, $10.50 for bus tickets and $10.00 for food. A real bargain for spending a thoroughly delightful morning with The Son.

[BTW, The Daughter, who would not have wanted to come given the chance, is out of town with friends this weekend -- just in case you're wondering why she was left out of the fun.  And The Husband hates crowds more than I do and hates walking even more than he hates crowds.  Besides, he was at work.  Naturally.]

After the festival and the bus ride home, The Son and I were both somewhat in the mood for a movie in a theater so we drove by two (across the street from each other) to see what was playing but there wasn't anything we wanted to see so we went home and watched Aliens on TV instead.  We're thinking about going to see Public Enemies tomorrow.  You'll have to tune in tomorrow and see if it actually happens.

Related posts:

1. Day 186: Fast Food
2. $$: Gas, Juice, & Small Loan
3. $$: Gas, Food, & more Gas
4. No Spend Day
5. Day 19