Hi everyone! I have had a relaxing summer so far, and I have been to some garage sales. From June 22-23, 2011, Mom and I spent some time with my Aunt Patti (Mom's younger sister), who lives in Braidwood, Illinois. Besides cooking good food, she is also an avid fan of garage sales. So, on the morning of Thursday, June 23, 2011, Mom, Aunt Patti, and I ate a good breakfast and went to several garage sales in Coal City, Diamond, and Wilmington, Illinois. We had an enjoyable journey that morning, and we found some nice deals. Here are some of the notable sales we went to, and the stuff I got from these sales (the article is not going to be as long as the last one, because we did not go to as many sales on this day).

Garage Salin' with Mom and Aunt Patti

Thursday, June 23, 2011


So, we got ready, got into my car, and went salin'. There were some sales listed in the local paper the day before, so we kind of had a route planned, but if you have ever been saling before, you would know that the unexpected sale can happen at any time. A saler can plan the perfect garage sale route to go on, but cannot plan the perfect garage salin' day. The route itself might hold treasures or junk, but it's the unexpected surprise sales that can really make or break a garage salin' session, and make the whole adventure worth the time and gasoline.

The day was not full of sunshine and daisies. Actually, it was a very cloudy day, and it was sprinkling lightly. My Aunt Patti was a bit worried about it raining harder later in the day, but we decided to take the risk, because we could always go back to her house if the weather started to get stormy (I had an umbrella in my car in case). Anyway, a good garage salin' day does not always have to have the perfect weather, or even sunny weather. Now, I am not advising any of you to go to garage sales when there is a tornado outside or when it is snowy and cold in December (depending on where you are, and if it's an indoor sale or not). Just do not be afraid of a weatherman's predictions or a couple of clouds in the sky, because the weatherman could be wrong. Luckily for us, it remained relatively cloudy all day, and did not rain much (or that hard), so we were able to go to several garage sales without much trouble. Some people did not open or set up their sales because of the cloudy conditions, but that is their loss (and we got to save money!).

We found our first sale before 8 AM, and asked the woman seller whether we could look around a bit early. She was still setting stuff up, but she gave us her permission. I do not have a picture of this sale, but I did get a nice white purse for $1, and a couple of nice blouses. My Aunt Patti found a red purse for $2, and bought it for me. Shortly after we arrived, we left this sale and continued on our garage salin' adventure…





One of the first garage sales we went to was a barn sale, shown in the above photo. There were some very interesting items at this sale – such as a table full of promotional trucker hats for a dollar each, old Coca Cola bottles, old license plates, a lot of VHS tapes, children's toys, men's tools, homemade figurines, etc. I bought some Berenstain Bears tapes (from the old animated series) at this sale, along with a Cartoon Classics tape. There was a cute little boy at the sale that is probably going to grow up to become a good salesman, because he sold a couple of his toys (which must have been precious to him) to my Mom (who could not resist his pitch).

After the barn sale, we tried to look for a sale on Elizabeth St. in Coal City, but we could not find it after looking three times, so we gave up (the sellers probably did not set up the sale that day, on account of the possible inclement weather). So, we ate some trail mix, drank some water, and, after regaining our senses, looked for more garage sales to go to, because we had not spent all of our garage sale money yet!





I found a nice Precious Moments figurine at the above sale, at the outskirts of Coal City. It took us a long drive to get to this sale (really, there were a lot of signs leading us to this sale, and it was almost like a wild goose chase to us). The sale was not very big, so we did not look around for long. Mom and Aunt Patti loved the baked goods the people at this sale were selling, so they bought a couple of paper plate-fulls of Snickerdoodles, cookies, etc. which were homemade (and looked very good - I tried some Snickerdoodles when we returned to my Aunt Patti's house in Braidwood). I also bought a magnificent pink scarf with roses on it for only 10 cents, which my Mom loved (she was a bit jealous of my find).





At this garage sale (around Diamond/Coal City), there were some really nice soft cover and hard cover books for sale (for around $2 or $3 each). Aunt Patti bought a couple of the hard cover books (including some by John Grisham) and I bought a couple of soft cover books (which I'll show below in the pictures of my stuff).





The next sale we went to was a house across from the Kankakee River in Wilmington, Illinois. Imagine having this beautiful view to see every day! Mom told me that if she lived in that house, she would be sitting on the front porch every day, especially at sunset. The garage sale with the beautiful view is below…





There was a lot of good stuff at this sale, especially for Mom and Aunt Patti. There were plenty of videos and books for me to look at (and yes, I did get some tapes and books), but the real prize of this sale were the cheap clothes. The clothes' prices were not that bad (around 50 cents or $1.00-$1.50), but all clothes that were unmarked were only 25 cents each! Mom and Patti each got a huge bag full of clothes, and spent around $10 each. Some of the clothes were for Grandma and Grandpa, because they have not been able to go to a lot of garage sales lately (or shopping for new clothes), and this sale had a lot of nice clothes for them (like t-shirts, tank tops, etc.). Mom and Aunt Patti also got some nice clothes themselves, and I also got a bag of clothing (but not as much as they did!).

Mom and Aunt Patti were worn out from buying so many nice clothes for only 25 cents, and we were thinking about calling it a day. We continued to drive around Wilmington for a bit, and we saw a 5-family garage sale sign. We followed more signs to the end of a road, where there was a garbage truck loading up trash. There was a house to our left, but no garage or garage sale in sight. We figured out that we had to turn left and drive through the yard in order to get to the sale. My Aunt Patti warned me that my car was going to need washing soon. So, we drove through the field to the sale, hoping the sale was worth it.

This is the field we had to drive through to get to the 5-family garage sale. The road is way back there, to the left of the house. We just parked our car in the field, next to the other cars already parked there.





This is what the outside of the garage sale looked like. The garage it was held in was a large two car garage. There were bikes, dresses, Halloween costumes, and children's toys on display outside, but there was even MORE stuff displayed inside…





Wow! This sale was worth it! There was a ton of stuff there, as evidenced by the picture above. The family had clothes hung on racks, a few shelves of VHS tapes, and tables full of toys, Christmas decorations, figurines, etc., and boxes full of books. The holders of this garage sale even had a counter set up near the entrance with impulse items to buy, like it was a store or something. We found some nice clothes, but not as much as at the last sale. I also found some VHS movies and a couple of books to buy, as well as a nice, black belt for only 10 cents. My Aunt Patti was getting tired, and wanted to go back to her home soon, but I took awhile to look at all of the STUFF to make sure I did not miss anything good to buy. We had exhausted our monetary funds by the time we got done looking around this sale (my Mom and Aunt Patti actually spent more money than I did!), so we decided to go back to my Aunt Patti's house. Later in the evening, I went back to my own house in Joliet, and on Sunday, June 26, 2011, I cleaned off my stuff. Here's the stuff I got from my most recent garage sale adventure…

My Stuff:





I got three beautiful purses to add to my growing collection of purses. I got the white purse, upper left, at a Coal City sale for only $1. It was still in good condition and pretty clean. My Aunt Patti bought me the red purse, bottom, at another garage sale for $2. I did not buy the light blue Coach purse, on the upper right – my Aunt Patti gave me the purse from her closet (she had received the purse as a birthday present one year, but she has not really used it much).




I bought some more books to add to my growing library of books in my Retro Room. I love reading, and my shelves are filled with a variety of book genres, including fiction, nonfiction, how-to books, children's books, religious books, history books, textbooks, etc. So far, I have read the book No Pity (by Joseph P. Shapiro), and it was filled with inspiring stories about individuals with disabilities fighting for the rights everyone else in America was given at birth. It's an excellent book about the passage of the ADA (American with Disabilities Act).




I also got some more VHS videos to add to my collection of childhood videos. The Berenstain Bears videos were particularly good finds – I did not have these episodes, and I was a huge fan of the books when I was a kid. I even remember renting some Berenstain Bears videos from Blockbuster years ago (when Blockbuster still stocked VHS tapes – I am getting pretty old!). I also obtained “The Wishing Bear,” one of my favorite episodes of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. I have not watched this episode in years (I did not have the episode on VHS), so I look forward to reviving some long lost memories.





I also bought a couple of VHS movies, especially at the 5-family garage sale: Rankin and Bass' The Easter Bunny is Comin' to Town, Cartoon Classics, and Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, one of the first movies with Cher.





At the 5-family garage sale, I also bought a very nice belt for only ten cents. At the barn sale, I bought a very nice tree sculpted from wire (I believe). At another sale, I bought a Precious Moments Mary and Joseph praying over the Baby Jesus (do you know how expensive they are in the store?).

So that is the end of my second garage sale adventure in 2011. I hope all of you that read this article liked it, and if I go on anymore garage sale adventures this summer, I will write about it here on Retrojunk. Thank you for reading!