Summer Roads

I had to go down to the Corvallis area to pick up some plants at a nursery on Thursday. When I saw an ad on Craigslist for an “enormous estate sale” in nearby Albany I figured I might as well go there too. Of course I left the house a bit later than I'd planned and fretted that there would be a zillion people ahead of me for the sale. Fortunately I didn’t fret much, because when I got there (a senior condo community) there were only about six people waiting to go in. 

It was one of those friendly crowds with everyone chatting as we waited. I met two lovely women and we ended up swapping pet stories. One had lost her dog about the same time we lost Edward, and misses hers like I miss him. The other rescues Arabian horses and showed me pictures of the one who seems to think he’s a giraffe, stretching his neck out longer than you’d think would be possible for a horse.

She also tells a story about a dog that arrived at her house one day carrying a sandwich in his mouth. Isn’t that a great image?

Most of the sale was simply not my taste. But I had barely gotten in the door when I saw this cute vintage lamp. 

Looks like a cross between Bambi and Rudolph (covering all their marketing bases I guess). Hmmm, that would work in the children’s literature-themed guest room.

 

I picked it up to check the price. I liked the price.

It was at least 20 minutes later before I noticed the tail is missing, and by then we had bonded. (Even without a tail you can still have a tale and that’s good enough for me.)

Another room held hundreds of pieces of nice quality clothing. I went for this ankle-length linen dress to upcycle

because it came with a matching ankle-length skirt that I can use to embiggen the dress. I'm not sure why anyone would buy both pieces, but it works out for me.

I thought I was finished and headed out to pay—and found yarn in the garage. Picked up some Irish wool for a buck a skein 

and a little booklet that will be a gift. 

I’m sure the person it's for will guess she’s the recipient, especially when I point out that the pictures place its publication around the first time she taught herself to knit!

From the estate sale I drove to the nursery, then headed home. I decided not to go back to the freeway and headed north on the back roads I've used before.

Detour, said a sign, so I detoured. Drove several miles, then came to another detour. (I think they’re doing work on some railroad crossings in the area.) I detoured again. The back roads became really back roads (still good paved roads, but I had no idea where I was). 

My GPS said turn here, then turn there, so I did—and realized she was guiding me to the ferry over the Willamette River. Trouble was, the river is low this time of year and the ferry is closed. I turned into someone’s driveway and found the setting in the GPS to ‘avoid ferries’. She recalculated another route. Whew! Took a while to get home, but it was a beautiful drive.

I don’t get lost. I just take the scenic route!

Friday morning KK and I headed out early for another estate sale, one that promised art supplies. Again there were only a few people in line ahead of us. But one of them happened to be a large, rather nasty man who actually started a fight with another guy at KK’s own garage sale a while back. She thought she might have to call the cops that time. I got annoyed at him once we were inside this sale because even though the place was not crowded, he bumped me aside a couple of times lest I get to something before he could. Sheesh. 

But don’t worry, I'll get my revenge: I'll use him as a character in one of my books and give him an unpleasant fate. Ha, take that!

KK did score some art supplies and an original oil painting, and I picked up a bundle of vintage dish cloths. There are two kitty embroideries, 

two days-of-the-week, 

and this curiosity. 

I was semi-astounded when I undid the bundle, because my last house was in Santa Ana and I'd never heard of this air base. Turns out it existed from about 1941 to 1946, and the land now includes John Wayne Airport and the county fairgrounds. So this is a pretty old towel.

They are all in an oxy soak now!

We went to a few more sales but nothing was tempting enough to buy. (KK found the bracelet of golden bees for fifty cents before I saw it!) We paused to admire a wonderful picket fence, 

and had a good laugh over the straightforward name of this product.

When we finished, there were no detours to keep us from our favorite Thai restaurant for lunch!