Saturday: The Yard Sale That Wasn’t, Cava to the Rescue & Fancy Fries

Well.

Today did not go according to plan.

We got up this morning, had a quick breakfast at the hotel and got ready to head to the Replacements, Ltd. annual yard sale.

This was basically the entire reason for the trip, so we were excited and ready to go.

And then I typed the address into my phone.

45 minutes away.

Excuse me?

I had specifically booked our hotel because I thought we were staying really close to Replacements.

For a few seconds, I genuinely thought I had somehow completely messed up the hotel reservation.

Then I looked closer at the map.

Red.

Lots and lots of red.

Right around Replacements.

Oh.

And Then the Police Got Involved

We headed that direction anyway and arrived around 7:45 a.m.

The sale hadn’t even officially been open very long, and when we got close, we discovered a police blockade.

Replacements is essentially at the end of the road, so there wasn’t another secret route we could take.

The police were turning everyone away.

There wasn’t much information available at that point, but we eventually learned that the yard sale had essentially reached capacity before 8 a.m., and Replacements had asked police to stop additional traffic from coming down the road.

So there we were.

My mom.

My 16-year-old.

My 11-year-old.

Me.

The empty laundry baskets.

All ready for our great china adventure.

And the police were telling us to leave.

Not quite how I pictured this going.

So We Went to Target and Ulta

What else were we supposed to do?

We killed some time at Target and Ulta and tried to figure out whether there was any possibility of getting back in later.

Eventually, we drove back over and I talked to the police officer again.

At this point, I basically begged:

Could we at least go to the regular showroom?

We had driven all this way. We weren’t trying to get into the yard sale anymore. We just wanted to shop inside.

And finally, they let us through.

Maybe Missing the Yard Sale Wasn’t the Worst Thing

By then, we were hearing more about what had been happening inside the actual yard sale.

Apparently, people were grabbing enormous amounts of china, creating big piles and then sorting through everything afterward rather than choosing as they went.

Things were getting broken. Other shoppers couldn’t get to items. And from what we heard and observed afterward, it sounded like the whole thing had become pretty chaotic.

It was especially disappointing because the fun of this, at least for us, was supposed to be the hunt.

My 11-year-old was so excited to dig through things and find inexpensive pieces she could use for hosting tea parties.

So yes, I’m still really sad that we didn’t get to experience the yard sale we drove all this way to attend.

But after hearing what it was actually like in there?

Maybe missing it wasn’t entirely a bad thing.

We Got Our Christmas Plates

Thankfully, this story has a happy ending.

We got into the regular Replacements showroom.

And if you’ve never been there, that alone is an experience because there is just an unbelievable amount to look at.

Most importantly, we still got to do what had become our mission:

Find my mom a Christmas plate she doesn’t already own.

Which is getting increasingly difficult.

And somehow, we found two.

One is a classic Christmas tree.

The other is a nutcracker.

I think my little girls are going to especially love the nutcracker plate.

So after a police blockade, Target, Ulta, another conversation with the police and absolutely no yard-sale shopping…

We still left Replacements with Christmas plates.

I’ll call that a win.

Cava to the Rescue

By the time we left, we were starving.

And perhaps slightly emotionally exhausted.

So we went to Cava for lunch.

It was exactly what we needed.

Good food. Everyone got what they wanted. We sat down and regrouped.

And the guy working there even gave us extra pita bread.

Apparently we looked like women who had been through something.

We needed a win.

He gave us pita.

We’ll take it.

Fancy Dinner, Fancy Fries

We did some more shopping that afternoon and then went back to the hotel to get dressed for the evening.

First we went to a local Catholic church for the vigil Mass, and then we headed out for our nice dinner.

Steaks.

A fried goat cheese salad for my girls to try.

And my 11-year-old somehow ended up with an absolutely enormous pile of French fries at this very nice restaurant.

Fancy restaurant.

Fancy dinner.

Fancy fries.

She was delighted.

Meanwhile, Back at Home…

And because apparently I cannot take a weekend off from receiving food updates, Chris sent me a picture of his dinner.

Before I left, I had pulled a bag of my sliced brat bites out of the freezer to thaw.

And tonight he cooked them.

Excellent work, Chris.

This is exactly why I like having things like that already prepped in the freezer. The brats were already sliced. He just had to cook them, and dinner was handled.

Not the Day We Planned

Today was frustrating.

We drove all this way specifically for a yard sale we never actually got to attend.

My 11-year-old didn’t get to fill her wagon with inexpensive tea-party treasures.

Our empty laundry baskets did not get to fulfill their intended destiny.

And there was definitely a moment this morning when we were sitting near a police blockade wondering what on earth we were supposed to do next.

But we got into Replacements.

We found two Christmas plates my mom doesn’t already have, which is an accomplishment in itself.

We ate good food.

We went to Mass.

We had a really nice dinner.

And the four of us still got to spend the entire day together.

Not remotely the Saturday we planned.

Still a pretty good Saturday.