Delicious window shopping and some Grange sale treasures

Last weekend we drove 3 hours each way to meet my husband's sister in Southern Oregon. Madeleine and Sarah spent a happy week running the whole family ragged in the Redwoods. Grace and Laura spent a happy week playing with all the big girls' stuff!

On the way there we stopped in Oakland, a tiny Victorian town of old-fashioned ice cream shops and more than its share of great antique stores. Laura fell in love with the Smarties display in Tolly's. Num-num indeed.

I fell in love with this restored vintage Schwinn. Haven't been able to get it off my mind. I have two vintage Schwinns in my husband's shop, just waiting for someone to lovingly restore them. But I haven't a trike like that. And it's already done. Must be meant to be mine.

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Except my husband went to pick the girls up solo. So I didn't get a chance to stop in and drool on the trike again. At least there are pictures.

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Oh! And a garage sale update from yesterday. Our local Grange was hosting the sales, so we didn't have far to go for our treasures.

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Grace and Laura and I bought:

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One working 1960s hairdryer hood thingamajig, 50 cents. This will lead to the best beauty shop party ever when the big girls get home.

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One redwood bench that converts to a picnic table, 20 bucks. Score! AND the seller delivered. Could I be any luckier? It will come in handy when we host all the cousins and grandmas and grandpas and neighbors and friends for a barbecue before next weekend's fire hall ice cream social.

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Three small Breyer horses, 50 cents because one was missing its tail and Grace couldn't leave it behind. Sigh. One matchbox car and two dump trucks for the sandbox, one dollar for the lot.

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Four books: how to draw horses, French for beginners, creative writing prompts for fifth and sixth grades, and a Nancy Drew that Madeleine didn't already own. One more dollar and we had the wagon loaded down. Thank goodness it was within walking distance for Grace because she lost her seat to the hair dryer.

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I would love to share photos with you but my husband took the good camera to California with him and the other camera may have been dropped. Don't look at me like that. It's the multitasking that does it.

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Then, to cap of our waterless but wonderful day, my great friend Caro rescued us from an afternoon of agonizing over the well. She drove us to town to the feed store! And then we meandered out to her farm, which is about 35 miles from ours on the other side of the small town where Caro and I graduated high school together a couple of years ago.

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We met her neighbor's puppy and played on her farm with her two fabulous teenage sons (who give me so much hope for the teen years every time I see them) and then her husband accompanied us back to our little farm to deliver huge jugs of drinking water and then to diagnose our pressure-tank-water-line-stuff-I-don't-understand. So we feel very taken care of in my husband's absence.

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Manoman am I blessed. Even without the Schwinn of my dreams.