Junk Jaunt

I mentioned last week that I was headed out on an adventure with two of my sisters.  I've worked really, really hard all summer, and decided it was time for a little fun. 

In an earlier post (here) I made a brief comment about how one of my sisters and I entered into a partnership on a FABULOUS Craftsman house in the little town where our mother lives.  This house is the house I have always wanted, but I never thought I would have, and I certainly never thought I would have in this little western Nebraska town.  In the year since acquiring it, we have painted nearly the whole inside and have begun a kitchen remodel (handy to have a brother in the business, for sure), and we have been trying to find decent secondhand furnishings and affordable antiques to fill it up. 

This is our house, when we were looking at it.  My three sisters and my niece are in the picture.



In June we found a flyer for Nebraska's 9th Annual Junk Jaunt.  Basically, it's 300 miles of garage sales, flea markets and antique shows and shops, forming a loop in the middle of Nebraska through the sandhills and around the Loop River.  I had heard about it before, but never was very interested in going.  Garage sales, honestly, are not my thing.  However, this year it sounded like a good idea, to see if we could find some great stuff for our house.  Dana came back from her home in Virginia and we persuaded another sister, Nancy, who lives in western Nebraska, to come along with us. 

We began in Broken Bow, where they had several vendors set up at the Custer County Fairgrounds.  After all was said and done, this was our favorite stop on the Jaunt.  They had a HUGE building crammed full of every kind of antique and vintage item you could think of.  Had we known then what we know now, we would have spent more time and money there.  They had lots of really cool stuff. 

Throughout the day on Friday we traveled to Berwyn, Ansley, Sargent, Mason City, Litchfield, Ravenna.  I couldn't tell you how many places we stopped.  Some had great stuff, some had just junk, some were typical garage sales.  You could find ANYTHING on the Junk Jaunt, including a live chicken.

Yes, these chickens were for sale!

 

Dana so wanted to buy a chicken!  And leave it at our house.  Where our mother or brother would have to take care of it.  Where I'm pretty sure there is a city ordinance against keeping chickens in town.  Reluctantly, she walked away with just a photograph. 

 

I actually intended to take lots of pictures along the Jaunt.  But we were having too much fun playing a scavenger hunt game and looking for lost treasures that I only took a couple.  These were taken at one of our stops in Ansley.

 

 

 

On Saturday we stopped in Cairo, Dannebrog, St. Paul, and a great spot in the country along the highway near St. Libory.  We finished the day in downtown Grand Island at several antique malls (where a fabulous set of mesh-front gym lockers we wanted for our bathroom got snatched out from under our noses.  My fault, really, for not getting to them sooner.  Sorry, Dana!  I blew it!)

 

Sunday we decided to just hit the antique show in Grand Island at Fonner Park.  We didn't get much there because it was all 'retail' priced. 

 

We probably only did about 1/3 of the whole Junk Jaunt, but we learned a lot about where to go, where to skip.  Broken Bow is a MUST STOP, and we enjoyed Sargent a lot as well.  Next year we might take the northern route out of Broken Bow.

 

We had a really great time.  It was a fabulous sister's weekend.  I will tell you all about our scavenger hunt games tomorrow. 

 

For now, I've got to get back to work.

Have a great day!

Lisa