Why I'm Glad the "Estate" Sale Sucked!!

Yes, you read that right -- the estate sale (and I use that term very, very loosely!) was a total bust. Oh sure, the pictures on Craigslist looked SO promising. Of course, after doing more searching, I see that those are the same pictures this person had on Craigslist back in OCTOBER. So, needless to say, the items in the pictures weren't still at the sale. I did manage to find 4 books from the late 1800s and early 1900s, which I snagged for a $1 a piece. I should've asked the dude running the sale for some reimbursement for the gas I wasted driving up there. I'd never been to that area before, except when I would pass by the exit on my way to western MD or West Virginia and I've always said I wanted to go through there and see what it was like, so I guess I had that chance eh? It's a charming little area and I think it would be most fabulous to live up there -- lots of hills and land and horse farms. So pretty!


After leaving the waste-of-time sale, I switched on the GPS and put in that I wanted to avoid highways and headed back in the general direction of home. I love just getting out on the back roads and seeing what's out there! I ended up in Clarksville, MD but couldn't remember where this cute little store was that I'd passed one other time and googling didn't help either. I tried calling my friend, who coincidentally works in Clarksville but he didn't answer his phone so I headed on through and back towards Baltimore. I knew there was a "thrift shop" at this church in Catonsville and I've been meaning to go so that's what I did. 

It was a cute little "shop" with lots of clothing and some knick-knacks and whatnot. I found a few holiday items, some great vintage tupperware and tons of vintage kid books! Yay! Plus, they were having a special discount that day wherein you pulled out a slip of paper from a bag & got an extra % off of your total. All of my goodies came out to $3.75 with the discount but I gave the lady a $5 and told her to keep the change. It's for the church so I didn't mind giving her the extra money. The church was having a roasted pork dinner that night and the entire building smelled so delicious -- I have no idea how those ladies were able to work in there all morning because after being in there for 20 mins, I was STARVING!! 


I left the church & decided to just drive down the road a little further and see where it would take me. I came up to an intersection and knew I'd been in that vicinity before, only coming from another direction. I remembered that there was this great little park with lots of trails just down the street and that was the next item on my agenda. This park is never busy, which is a plus!! I've been there a few times before and have seen maybe 3 or 4 people there with their doggies walking the trails but I love that it's almost always empty. I parked, grabbed my Vera Bradley backpack which I've converted into a camera bag and set off to take some pictures of the last of the leaves! 

I was the only car in the parking lot except for an employee and they soon left. He did stop me on his way out and told me that the main part of the park was having a celebration for its namesake -- Benjamin Banneker. Mr. Banneker was born a free African American in 1731 and was an astronomer, mathematician, almanac author and farmer, amongst other things. So, this was a little celebration in honor of his birthday. Unfortunately, I spent too much time on the trails and was late to the party so I didn't go. You can read more about Benjamin Banneker here.

The trails were empty, which is how I like them, and since it had been a while since we'd had any rain, they weren't muddy! Yay! I'm going to go back sometime soon and do some geocaching I think. Anyway, it was a great way to spend 45 or so minutes and the colors of the trees were so amazing. The sky was that deep shade of blue that always reminds me of the morning of September 11th -- you know, that deep, dark blue without any clouds in the sky. It was the perfect backdrop to the bright yellow leaves. 

I saw lots of little birdies flying through the woods, heard something that was praying was a squirrel and generally had a pleasant, relaxing time just meandering through the woods. I took the shortest of the trails because I have this thing about being alone in the woods, which probably comes from watching too many episodes of CSI with the ex. I didn't feel comfortable traipsing all through the trails and since it was getting to be 3:00, it was already getting dark in there & I certainly didn't want to be in the woods after dark! 
The rest of my afternoon was spent running various errands and getting ready to go out dancing with my friend. It was a lovely start to the weekend and I'm so glad I spent some time in nature since it's cold and rainy today and I'm sure all of the beautiful leaves will be gone by tomorrow!! So, even though the estate sale was a bust, my day ended up being so wonderful & that's just the reminder I needed -- sometimes the best things in life aren't things that can be bought! 

Impromptu Road Trips

As I'm sure you know if you've been reading my blog for any length of time, I love road trips. To me, there's nothing better than getting in the car & just driving. It's so exciting to be on the road with no real plans and no expectations. Unfortunately, gas is still ridiculously expensive (to me anyway) so I don't do this very often. Maybe if I drove a more fuel efficient car, I'd get out there & do more exploring but since I drive a gas hog SUV which only gets 250 miles on a tank ($48 to fill, btw), I'm mostly combining errands these days and trying to limit my gas consumption! 

Anyhow, this past weekend instead of going to the DC Big Flea, I stayed in Baltimore. Well, on Saturday anyway. Sunday, my friend and I woke up sort of late and then headed out for what was supposed to be a day of browsing antique stores up in Havre de Grace. He assured me that he didn't need to use my GPS as we left the Sonic where we'd stopped for lunch. It became quite evident that we were heading the wrong direction to pick up I-695 but the scenery was so nice on this road that we just kept going. 

Eventually, I found part of a Maryland map in the pocket on the back of the seat and I realized we were nearing Westminster, MD, which is a gorgeous little town not far from the Pennsylvania border. We continued our drive into Westminster and then over to Thurmont where we made a quick stop at Catoctin State Park. This park is so beautiful and I can't believe it's so close to me and I've never been there before. It was cold and we weren't dressed for any outdoor activities so we enjoyed the drive through the park and vowed to come back and do some exploring soon! 

After leaving the park, we headed into Hagerstown, MD where we stopped for a caffeine break at the Sheetz gas station. Once we loaded up on junk food & coffee, we made our way down through Sharpsburg and Antietam and into Harpers Ferry, WV. My friend had never been to those parts of the states before so it was nice to see him experience it for the first time. The leaves were just beautiful!! I thought for sure that it was going to be all brown & dead but I was pleasantly surprised to see lots of color still on the trees. 

We visited some of the historic buildings in town and took a walk across the bridge which goes over the Potomac River. Well, we only made it about half way across the bridge because I am terrified of both bridges and heights and was starting to feel a panic attack come on so I quickly turned around and go the hell back on solid ground!! 

Of course with the time change on Sunday morning, it was starting to get dark around 4 so we decided to get back in the car and head towards home. I'm so lucky that I have a friend that really enjoys just getting out and doing things like this. And I'm lucky that I live so close to such beautiful areas that are within an hour or two drive from here. So, I missed the DC Big Flea and all of the holiday goodies but I had an amazing day with someone that really makes me happy and I saw beautiful scenery. I'd say it was a pretty good way to spend the day, wouldn't you?!