Wisconsin Adventures!

First, you have to look at this ad. As Kohl's is a Wisconsin based company and this ad is about shopping, I feel this photo is almost on-topic.

The adorable surfer dude rocking the black t-shirt is my cousin! Don't you want to go buy some Levi's because of him?!

As you know, I was on vacation last week so I missed whatever sales Belleville offered. I don't even want to know about them. I'm sure they were wacky and wonderful.

The good news is that I found a few sales in Chetek, Wisconsin and surrounding towns so I have something to report! Also, I didn't hand my card out that much so I feel confident that I can make fun of all the sales without any nasty social side effects.

You first have to understand the Chetek situation. Chetek is a sweet little town, dependent on the summer tourists. Lake Chetek is one of a chain of calm, green, fishy lakes perfect for boating, fishing, and going pee when you find yourself away from shore for too long. In Chetek there is a lot of beer and cheese curds. Most food is fried. They have many Supper Clubs.

Here are a few pictures to set the mood:

Enough of that. I'm getting homesick.

My first adventure was in an antique store. In general, I try not to shop at antique stores. I think it's more fun to find treasure in-the-raw, tucked away in someone's garage or splayed across their driveway, for sale for mere pennies. I am the hunter and the junk is my prey. At antique stores the conquest has been made already and I am forced to pay a premium for the hunter's time and energy.

Having said that, look what I bought:

It is a vintage Sears metal play refrigerator. I thought it would be clever storage for files and office supplies. I could cover the front with magnets and notes. But now that I'm home, I can't find a place to put it. It was pricey, too! Maybe I should donate it to the school auction? Perhaps some rich school parent had a similar one when she was a child and will be overcome by a wave of nostalgia and will buy it for hundreds of dollars, thereby providing our school with enough money to fix that leak in the ceiling by the band room...

As it was vacation, I refused to use the internet to find sales. I could have. Matt's phone is "smart" and he used it plenty of times to get phone numbers for golf courses and check sports scores and whatall. But I think a lake vacation should be technology-free so I had to resort to this:

This, in case you are one of our younger readers, is a newspaper ad. This is how yardsalers of the past had to get their information. Primitive? Yes. We had to drive 20 miles to attend this estate sale. All I bought was a sparkly letter G for my collection. (Yes, I already had a G but this one was better, causing me to think that maybe I should just collect all the initials I can find and have sort of a stock pile or something? What do you think?) My mom found some great jokers for her joker collection. (She collects just the jokers from decks of playing cards. It is really amazing, the variety and beauty of jokers.) I am aware that I may have got my weird collection gene from my mother. I think this is called the-apple-falling-not-far-from-the-tree syndrome.

That was our only advertised sale but there were skivs aplenty! Some neon corner signs told us to follow the arrow for 11 miles (!) and we would find a garage sale. We blew those off. Really, who has that kind of time?

Our first skiv took us down a wooded gravel drive which would have set off Laura's internal warning devices for sure. (Remember, Jeffrey Dahmer was from Wisconsin.) But our bravery was rewarded with some fine merchandise. Like these fuzzy rearview mirror boobies, for instance:

Now, readers will question both my taste and my parenting, but we bought these 25 cent boobies and had quite a bit of fun with them. We dangled them from the mirror for awhile...

...but something about their fuzzy nipples both attracted and repelled me and my driving started to suffer. So we let Louie play with them for a little bit...

...but that didn't seem totally appropriate, so we ended up donating them to Uncle Robert, Matt's 67 year old uncle who was widowed 18 months ago but has recently reverted to bachelor status. He hung them with pride from the mirror of his pick-up.

I found this multi-tiered food dehydrator which made me miss Laura. I thought about how much nasty fruit leather she could make with this sucker.

I also found a perfect gift for her, to thank her for babysitting the five guinea pigs. (A favor she will not soon repeat, I suspect.) I will let her blog about this excellently old, wooden object in her own post. Stay tuned! (Spoiler alert...shhhh...it's an old gym scooter!)

I found this really old bird cage for only $2.50.

Afterwards, I saw a nearly identical one in the antique store for $16! See what I mean about the hunt? I enjoy the hunt and am rewarded with such a savings! If I shopped in proper stores I would miss out on the challenge and pay a premium for the same junk. Or even worse, I could probably find a new-made-to-look-old birdcage at Hobby Lobby for $20. Crazy, that's what it is.

Finally, there was this long, wooden sign propped up in a yard along the main drag in town. It had a paper note attached that said "$50 O.B.O." I walked up to the door, ready to leave a note, but the owner was home. I was the O.B.O. at twenty bucks! The sign advertises Gas, Deli, Gifts, and once graced Chetek's Main Street over Don's Cheese Emporium, or something like that. It is both a handsome artifact and a piece of Chetek history. An excellent YSA Find, wouldn't you agree?

This Friday we head back to Wisconsin for our Door County vacation. Door County is a classier, pricier destination than Chetek. Rather than boating on a green, fishy lake we spend our time walking on the pure, white sand as frigid Lake Michigan laps at our toes. Door County is sure to offer a different variety of yardsale merchandise. But don't worry, they still have plenty of beer, cheese curds, and supper clubs. Tune in next week!

Nancy