Mother/Daughter Junking Trip - 2009

I took off for an overnight road trip with my Mom on Friday night. We saw in Country Living years ago an antiquing road trip on Route 1 in Maine, thought "Why have we never done that?" and have been talking about it ever since. It always got pushed aside because of life.

Last fall (around the time I found out I was pregnant, actually), I knew if we didn't just pick a date and DO IT, we'd never take the trip. A date was set and arrangements made. We were taking a girls' weekend, just the two of us. Ever since then, I've been saving my pennies.

We decided to take the I-95 South to Freeport and hop on Route 1, heading back north from there. After much debate, we opted to not follow the article we had read (because we had each ripped it out to mention to the other when we first saw it, of course!) but to just stop at whatever stores struck our fancy.

Our very first stop, however, was before Freeport. How could we possibly be driving South on the I-95 and NOT stop in Fairfield? The Fairfield Antiques Mall is less than 3 miles from the interstate. And we both absolutely loved it. We were there for nearly 3 hours!


My poor feet hurt by the time we left, but it was worth every minute. We both scored some great items, though I do believe the best one would be my "new" dresser. You'll be seeing it in a few weeks, after I refinish it and put it in it's new home.


From here, we went on to Freeport. We stopped for lunch and a quick run in at LLBean. Then we were off on Route 1. With no concrete plan at this point, we just drove and stopped wherever caught our fancy. And after the stop in Fairfield, honestly, not much impressed us. Around 4, we decided to just drive on through to Camden/Rockport and call it a day.

The germophobe in me gets very "ICK" over hotel rooms, but this place was really nice. We got a Double Queen Bed Suite, so we each had a nice big bed to sprawl out it. There was a kitchenette type area (a fridge, sink and coffee maker) and a small sitting area with a pull out sofa. We even had a small balcony overlooking a little garden house made of stone. If we had realized ahead of time there was a pool, we may have brought bathing suits (though I don't know if I REALLY want to be seen in a bathing suit right now - HA).

We arrived at The Country Inn in time to check in, bring in our bags and take off to find some dinner. The man at the front desk was extremely helpful in guiding us to some good eats. We headed off to downtown Camden and decided to try the Village Restaurant. Being that we were on a mini-vacation, we decided to splurge/indulge and both got the Seafood Medley (shrimp, scallops and lobster with stir fried vegetables and garlic sauce over linguine). My Mom nearly had to roll me back to the vehicle.

We accidentally "slept in" on Saturday morning (6:45 AM is late for junking! HA) After quick showers and a leisurely (and delightful) breakfast downstairs, we checked out and were back on the road by 8:30. We spotted a few yard sales and stopped at each. We scored some more great finds (my favorite being a HUGE painting of sunflowers for a mere $15 - I believe it's going over my bed).

Much to our disappointment, not much was open. We didn't hit our first store until Belfast (and were very glad for the high we got from the yard sales because we would have been discouraged and ready to head home).

Then we hit Searsport. We found a town road map advertising 18 antique stores in an 8 mile stretch. There were also more yard sales to be seen. Many of the stores were nice, but much more high scale than we like. By the time we finished at the Searsport Antiques Mall, we were bushed. We decided we'd had enough fun for the weekend and it was time to just head on home after finding some lunch.

We barely had time to make our decision when we pulled out of the driveway to see THIS:

This is Treasures and Trash Barn. And this is the type of place that excites us. We didn't find a single thing there other than a massive junkers high (you junkers out there know what I'm talking about!), but what a fantastic stop to end our trip.

From there, we did finally head home. I'm a doof and forgot to take a picture of our treasures piled in the back of the vehicle. We could still see out the back window of the Trail Blazer - but barely.

Monkey was ecstatic to see me. She jumped from her Auntie's arms and ran down the driveway full throttle to jump into my arms with a gigantic smile on her face. (This was only my second night away from her ever in her 2 years!)

After all of that shopping, I only spent about $200 (I have a lot to show for it, too). I even have some of my saved pennies left over to keep playing with home decorating. Or maybe a pedicure for my poor poor feet.

And it has been decided we will be making this an annual affair.