The Last Weekend of September

This post is for the last weekend in September which means we have really fallen behind. An all out effort will be made to catch up within the next week!

We've come to grips with the fact that the summer is gone and autumn is here to stay...for the next few months anyway. This weekend would be the first of many shortened work weeks as we look to exhaust our 2015 vacation days. 

Our saling list for Friday was short. Fridays have become a popular day for sales but they will never be as popular as the weekend days. Still, we had a few options and that was enough to start. Three sales. All nearby. Off we went! 

Sale #1 was in our town and was listed as a garage sale with "collectibles" and "antiques". We pulled up and we recognized the house. We had been here last year. We were disappointed then. We were disappointed again. On to the next sale.

Sale #2 was a sneak preview sale. It actually did not open to the general public until Saturday but we received a call on Thursday night with an invitation to drop by. The sale was run by a realtor who rarely has a sale but took our phone number at her last sale. She liked us and invited us to stop by a day early...and so we did. 

The kitchen was small and old with all wood cabinets. More importantly...

The countertop was boomerang! 

There was little change made to the bathroom since the house was built. Pink bathtub, pink sink and pink toilet

The bathroom floor was great too! 

There was a basement in the house and there, on the wall, was a mounted pencil sharpener! That's always a great sign! 

This must have been their original hamper for their pink bathroom. It was pretty beat up but it was still there.

We love seeing old exhaust fans in the kitchen

There was an upstairs, too, and we spent a lot of time in this house and we had it all to ourselves! By the time we left, we had a box of Christmas ornaments, lots of McDonald's glasses, some more carousel glasses, lots of pamphlets and more. It was a nice stop for us! 

After stopping for a late breakfast, we went to our last sale of the day; one described as a "digger cleanout". It was run by a tag sale company we know and we figured that it was worth a visit. As it turns out, there weren't a lot of rooms to search and there really wasn't much for us but we did not leave empty-handed. We left with an old ashtray and a book of matches from an old Chinese restaurant in our area that no longer exists.

We decided, earlier in the week, that we would go out for dinner on Friday night and, when Friday arrived, we knew where that would be...The Good Steer.

The Good Steer began its life in 1957 as an upscale hamburger stand with roll-down garage doors. The road that the restaurant is on was, once, a major gateway to The Hamptons and was a favorite stop along the way for such celebrities as Bert Lahr, the Gabor sisters, Ava Gardner, Bert Parks and many others. 

In 1965, the restaurant was enlarged and became more of the actual restaurant it is today. The great neon cow sign still stands today! 

The lobby has these two great cows that remind their patrons that they are in The Good Steer! 

They even have their own steak sauce now! 

Getting the onion strings as a side is a must. They are well known for them. It was a great night out and we will visit The Good Steer again! 

Saturday morning arrived and we were ready for more sales. Our first stop was an obvious one. In an ad for a sale just five miles away was a car being offered at an incredibly low price. Rob has been looking for a car to drive back and forth to work that gets good mileage. His car has been hit by our neighbor twice within the last year. We share a right of way driveway and one of our neighbors, in a much larger vehicle, has backed into it. Not once, but twice. The first time, the car took on about $1100 worth of damage and Rob got it fixed with the insurance money. The second hit was a lot worse. The hood of Rob's car would have to be replaced as well as one corner panel. The exhaust system was also cracked, making the car a little louder than he would have liked. He also suspected that the radiator was cracked too. The insurance money would not even come close to covering the repairs and, with the car getting on in years, it made no sense to pour the money into it. The car was still drivable but would not pass inspection which was due by the end of October. The car in the ad was of interest to us. We inquired into it via email with the tag sale company that was running the sale. 

The company was a fairly new one and one whose sales we had never attended but we knew one of owners and she told us that the car was meticulously maintained and had just 56,000 original miles from the original owner. Although the sale did not begin until 10am, there would be a sign-up sheet on the door and we would have to be there first. She volunteered that she did receive a text from someone who said that they would be there at 7:30am. We knew that we would have to be there earlier than that.

So...here was our view of the house at 7 AM. We were here first! 

And here was a view of the car

To make a long story short (oops...too late for that, isn't it?), we test drove the car, went to the bank, paid cash and it was ours! A quick walk through the house also brought us a couple of records, a pair of books and a bobble head. Although, it was after 10am by the time we left the first sale of the day, it was a major success and our next stop was for breakfast before we resumed the rest of our saling adventures.

Our original list of sales had six potential stops but with a good portion of the morning already gone, we knew that we would not make them all. Two of them were at least forty minutes away and one was in a completely different direction than the other sales. We decided to go to just two more which were located about twenty minutes away and were in the same town. 

Our second sale of the day was run by one of our favorite tag sale companies. It was described as "packed house" and some of the pictures in the ad showed potential. The owners of the tag sale company are really great people and we have not seen them in awhile. Even if we found nothing, it would be nice to see them! 

The house had this great screen door which we would have loved to bring home! 

There were two floors to search and, in the basement, we found the mounted pencil sharpener. That's always a good sign! That wasn't all we found in the house. By the time we left, we also found an outdoor patio rocking chair, some records, a New York Mets bobble head, some cool vintage trays and more. They came home with us.

Our last stop was just five minutes away and was described as "entire contents". Without any pictures in the ad, we were not sure what we would find. What we found was an outdoor garage sale with a driveway and garage filled with items for sale. We left with a few records.

Aside from the car, here are the things we found this weekend:

Some records

More records

Some car racing records from the 1960's

A McDonald's record given to employees in the 1970's

A couple of baseball books for Rob. He loves the old pictures!

Some books/magazines

Some pamphlets and an old letter from Campbell's Soup (on the right)

Old souvenirs from the Lake George region of New York

Old souvenirs from Niagara Falls

A pair of bobble heads

An old McDonald's pillow case

Some vintage metal trays, an old ash tray, some McDonald's and Gertz employee pins from the 1970's, a deck of playing cards and a book of matches from Sun Ming (an old Chinese Restaurant which is long gone)

Some old Rheingold Beer trays

An old outdoor patio rocking chair

Some old carousel glasses

A Star Wars glass and lots of McDonald's glasses; all giveaways in the 1970's

A pixie pin cushion, a package of Shiny Brite ornaments and a clown head. Why a clown head? Why not? 

Sunday was spent running errands, doing household chores and finding some time to relax, too. We wanted everything to completely done by the evening because...

It was the total lunar eclipse of the supermoon! With the sky clear and the event happening during a reasonable hour (it started at 8:12pm by us), it was easy for us to enjoy it. It's beauty was something that could not be adequately captured on film, at least not on our cheap cameras, but it was a site worth seeing!

We have a lot of three day weekends left this year and we're looking forward to them. Three days are always better than two when we have them to spend together. 

National Cheeseburger Day...And More!

This post is for the weekend of September 19th and 20th. We are just the slightest bit behind but we will catch up this week! 

It came to our attention that Friday, September 18th was National Cheeseburger Day. far be it from us to ignore that most important holidays! We knew that we had to celebrate in the way that was most important to us. It took very little thought. We knew what we had to do!

On Friday night, dinner would be at All American Hamburger Drive-In! The restaurant has been around since 1963 and is still owned and operated by the same family. It is one of our favorite places to stop for a quick bite and we were just talking about how it had been months since we were last there. National Cheeseburger Day became our inspiration to visit again!

The place is always busy. It always has been! We each ordered a quarter pound cheeseburger, an order of french fries and a strawberry shake. Okay, maybe Rob ordered a second cheeseburger too. 

All American Hamburger Drive-In always makes us smile! 

Saturday morning arrived and that means saling. The list compiled during the week had lots of sales with some potential though none were "can't miss" opportunities. The one we liked best was forty minutes away to our east and we were determined to get there pretty soon after its opening. With a list of potential sales ready and our first stop decided upon, off we went! 

We arrived at stop #1 not long after its opening hoping to find some good things at the "moving sale" that had some pictures of old stuff. We knew, from the pictures, that the backyard was littered with lots of statues including several flamingos. The pictures were not that great and we could not tell their age or their composition (we were hoping for old concrete garden flamingos). The other thing that sparked an interest from us was a gravel art black cat. We have one already but a second one would be nice. Plus, this sale was run by one of our favorite tag sale companies. Our fingers were crossed.

The basement was our first stop and there was much to search!

It had so many things all over the place

Hiding in the basement was this pole lamp. We passed on it since we have so many others that we like much better.

And, not surprisingly, was the mounted pencil sharpener in the basement. We already knew that this sale was pretty good but a mounted pencil sharpener in the basement always confirms that we are in the right place! 

As it turns out, the flamingos that we saw in the picture were plastic, not all that old and falling apart. We did see a concrete "drunk guy against a pole" but he had suffered a broken leg at some point in the past and had been repaired. We didn't think the asking price was worth the purchase. We did, however, get some tiki mugs, a ceramic squirrel, some mini Mexican hats, some records, a few Christmas things, some gravel art cats (though not the black one in the picture) and more!

After a quick stop for breakfast, we headed westward to continue our saling adventures. We weren't sure which stop we would go to next but we knew that every other sale was to the west. Along the way, we decided where our second stop would be.

Sale #2 was the closest to where we began our day and it seemed like the logical second stop. It was listed as an estate tag sale and we knew that it would be privately run since the ad was not prominent and there were no pictures. Since "hospital bed" and "wheelchair" were listed among the items for sale, we thought that this sale might have some old stuff. As we approached the door, we were told that the sale had been cancelled and that someone had come in two days prior and bought everything. They thought that they had killed the ad but, evidently, it did not work. The sale was a bust.

We were now moving towards our town and our third stop was advertised as a three family garage sale with vintage items. We arrived to find a three family garage sale as advertised. It was run by a vintage shop owner in town whose prices we consider pretty high. This garage sale was no different. Very little of interest and nothing at a reasonable price. Time to move on.

Sale #4 was also a garage sale though we did not know that in advance. It was advertised as an estate sale with the contents of the "whole house" for sale but most of the items were set out in garage sale style in front of the house with only the furniture remaining inside. We did better here than at the previous sale. We walked away with a couple of records, a ceramic poodle and a great vintage chafing dish which will be perfect for warming cocktail wieners! They originally had two of these chafing dishes but the top of one was lost long ago. They through in the remainder of the second dish for free.

It was at this point that we knew that we would not be able to make all of the sales on our list and we chose to go to the closer ones since none of the remaining ones stood out and by going to the two closest, we would have the best chance at success. The other ones were spread apart and choosing one of those would mean that it would be our last stop. Sale #5 was a "renovation and estate sale" and, like the previous one, it was a privately run garage sale. The things for sale were in the driveway and, though there was not that much, we did find a couple of things. A ceramic angel and a record came home with us.

The last sale of the day was run by a tag sale company that we know and it was evident in the picture that there was old stuff here. As we approached the house, we saw that the next door neighbor was taking advantage of the free advertising and was running a garage sale. We stopped to look and the one thing of interest was these really cool 1960's astronaut trading cards but the price they were asking, while fair, was not in our budget. It was time to move along.

The last sale had some really cool pictures in their ad. We saw a great starburst light fixture which was long gone by the time we arrived, though we have two of them already and had no plan to buy another. We also saw a pretty cool lamp in the picture which was still there but was greatly damaged. Our trip through the house was quick since it was a very small house but we did not leave empty-handed. A cookbook, some playing cards and a record came home with us.

Here are some of the things we brought home with us:

A cookbook

A 7-inch record

Some 12-inch records

Some 12-inch Christmas records

A vintage beach towel

A ceramic squirrel for mounting on the house (marked Japan), a Flintstones glass from 1962, a vintage bowl and a pair of small Mexican hats (for our annual Cinco de Mayo parties)

Some old decks of playing cards, a pair of old ashtrays, an old plastic indian and an old pennant.

Some old tiki mugs. One is unmarked, one is marked Hawaii and the other is marked 1962. 

A vintage chafing dish and some spare parts for it.

A pair of gravel art cats

Some Christmas things

It was a day filled with fun and we left the chores and errands for Sunday, all of which we completed with ease even with a two hour block reserved for watching the Manchester United game (Rob never misses a game). Two day weekends seem to go too fast but we always cherish the time we have together. Next week is a three day weekend and that is something to look forward to together...for saling and for simply giving us an extra day for us.