We started out with tons of traffic on the way South going through the beach cities (nightmare) so we had a late start by the time we made it down. Our first stop was Ocean Beach where I picked up an old rusty birdcage I found on Craigslist and discovered a cool mecca of vintage stores and a super cute diner where we had breakfast (at 1 pm). We also bought a huge (over 5 feet tall) thick wood frame that was all dirty and gross but had really neat fleur-de-lis carved into each corner. Apparently, in its former life it was part of a coffee table (glass was in the middle) but in its new life at the Ginger-Owsen home, it is now a beautiful giant chalk board (soooo cool – I love it!!!).
Next up was an estate sale at an East El Cajon trailer park. Yup, we know how to travel in style....and it was a total bust. They marked everything up 5 times its actual value so they could say everything was 50% off, meanwhile you are still paying 2.5 times its actual value. The only thing they had that I really liked was some beautiful vintage silverware (entire set in pristine condition) that they were asking a mere $450 bucks for!!! Oh, but I forgot to mention, it was half off, what do they think this dumpy trailer park is…..Saks Fifth Avenue!??!?
Next up was Julian for some Mom’s apple pie – can you say super YUM???? Well, we couldn’t because the line was literally around the block – the biggest line for apple pie I have ever seen in my life. Not sure if they were slipping diamonds into that pie or what, but we went across the street to Apple Alley and had back-alley apple berry pie. Since we had made such a long trek for the pie, we also bought a whole one to bring home, which Joel has promptly eaten half of BY HIMSELF. Yeah, that back alley pie was actually really good,
Next up was back down highway 8 to Viejas casino. They must have seen us coming, because Joel lost $100 bucks on blackjack in record time. I broke even on about 10 minutes of slot play when he showed up with a sheepish look on his face. We headed over to their Asian restaurant which was surprisingly good, so the stop was not a total loss. Headed home from there.
On Sunday I promptly took my old birdcage, sanded, painted, sanded some more, waxed and made it into the most beautiful birdcage lamp ever!!! I have been wanting one for a long time and now it perfectly fills a (formerly empty) corner in my living room.
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| Before...a rusty mess with lots of potential |
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| After, hard to see the Edison bulb light, but it's in there! |
After, didn't get a before on this one... but it's huge - over 5 feet tall.
