Our next stop was Ollie's Discount Store across the street. I think this one is even bigger than the one in Cherry Hill...and much better-organized. Lauren says it's only been open a few months and replaced her Big Lots. I found another one of those Williams Sonoma American Girls cookbooks, Summer Treats. Lauren and I both picked up boxes of Archway Cookies. She got iced oatmeal; I got Dutch cocoa.
Next up was our first trip to Goodwill of the day. There's one not far from the Ollie's. It was huge, even bigger than the one in Audubon! It took me a while to find the media, which is kept up front in that store...but when I did, I hit the jackpot. There was a whole bin of Good Eats DVDs, some of them still wrapped. Since I couldn't bring the whole bin home and some of them had episodes I already owned, I went with sets revolving around sweet treats (including the first Good Eats Christmas episode, "The Cookie Clause"), fruit, and favorite breakfast foods and drinks like tea and yogurt. I also picked up a Time/Life collection of popular standards What a Wonderful World and a jazz collection.
After that, we went back across the street to TJ Maxx. Lauren used her gift card to get clothes and a cute bear, but I didn't see anything I wanted. I went next door to Five Below for a Cherry Coke Zero and a Zagnut bar instead.
Lauren took me to the bank she worked for, the Co-Op, next. I got to meet all her co-workers, and even see her really neat desk. She's upstairs, sharing space with two other funny co-workers, across from a window offering a lovely view of the street and Angelina's Subs next-door. Her desk is so her, with all its awesome toys, photos, and stuffed animals. And her co-workers were hilarious and friendly.
It was a gorgeous day for a long ride to Great Barrington in South County. We made a brief stop at UPS so Lauren could pick up a package for her parents, then went on our way. Lunch was at Agaves Mexican Grill, just outside of Great Barrington. It was so beautiful, we sat outside to enjoy our half-iced tea, half home-made limeade drinks and tacos. She had roast pork with pineapple, I had chicken. Messy, but delicious. We enjoyed our meal while admiring the blue sky, fresh breezes, and totally dry weather.
After we got into Great Barrington, Lauren parked in the big lot next to the Food CoOp and went to the other branch of the CoOp, where Lauren worked for a while a few years ago. She still has a good friend there, Heather, who was cheerful and absolutely hilarious. Their banter was really witty, and it's obvious they'd been friends for a while. She gave Heather a pirate rubber duck for her rubber duck collection, along with things to give Rico, whose car hadn't been seen in the parking lot of the insurance building across the street.
We went for a long, lovely walk in Great Barrington next. This is a gorgeous old town, with massive stone churches, beautiful brick libraries, and charming little stores. Some of the stores weren't open on a Tuesday, but we did hit up most of the ones that interested us, starting with a lovely little toy shop. Lauren picked up action figures and a soft little purple kitty named Ube who was winking. I grabbed a sweet, wide-eyed little pink kitty named Strawberry.
There was a book sale in front of the old brick library. Tables of books were set on their front walk way, with a "pay as you go" donations box attached. Lauren found a book. I didn't see anything I needed.
The next store we found was even better. We were going to explore a comics shop, but they were closed. As we continued to walk, we saw a book shop nestled in a little yellow Victorian house. The Yellow House Book Store sold used books in three wonderfully cramped rooms filled with vintage finds from floor to ceiling. Some of those books went back over a hundred years! Lauren found comics. I found:
The Trumpeter of Krakow by Eric P. Kelly (This was one of my favorite books when I was a kid, the closest thing I could find to a swashbuckler or historical adventure at the school library, and it was only a dollar.)
The Black Arrow by Robert Lewis Stevenson (In a vintage paperback edition that looks like it's from the 60's or 70's.)
Topped Chef by Lucy Burdette
Bayou Book Thief by Ellen Byron
Bob's Records and Audio a few blocks down from the Yellow House proved to be an even better find. He had two rooms filled with records, CDs, and audio equipment of every kind. It's probably just as well that I can't carry records home. His prices on those were kind of high. His CDs were better. Lauren found country titles for her and instrumental classical albums for her parents, who listen to soft instrumental music when they're at home. I picked up:
Getz/Gilberto - Stan Getz and Joao Giberto (Another one I've wanted for a while, but the record copies I've seen were always expensive.)
Forest - George Winston
Lullaby of Broadway: The Best of Busby Berkeley at Warner Brothers (A 2-disc set containing the full music from some of the most famous dance numbers in Berkeley's Warners films.)
After we left Great Barrington, we next stopped at another Goodwill. This one wasn't quite as large, but it did yield some good finds. Lauren picked up tank tops for her gym workouts. I found the soundtrack from Summer of Soul and a hardback mystery:
Murder Comes to Call by Jessica Ellicot
Our last stop of the day was the Lee Outlets. We started with dinner at the food court. Despite being listed online as being open until 8, the only booth that actually was still open was Orientaste, their Chinese restaurant. We had Chinese by default. I had broccoli and chicken, mushrooms and chicken, fried rice, and a vegetable egg roll. They were only ok. The egg roll was kind of tough, and the rice was dry, but the chicken wasn't bad. Lauren had orange chicken and General Mao's Chicken.
We briefly stopped at Clarks - Lauren is friends with one of the sales ladies, but she wasn't there - before moving on to Jockey. They were having some really good sales. I picked up a three-pack of good cotton socks for $11.99 and buy one, get one free underwear. We did even better at Old Navy. Lauren bought more work-out clothes. I found a T-shirt that said "Montana Big Sky Country." I couldn't resist, though I've been trying to stay away from buying clothes. Bruce and Kay took Rose, Jessa, and me to Montana in 1995. I've wanted to go back for another trip ever since.
A brief stop at Talbot's yielded no finds, but we both did better at Eddie Bauer. Lauren got shirts off the clearance rack. I found more of those wonderfully comfortable and cute sleep socks and travel bags to keep accessories in. I've been using plastic bags as travel bags for more than 15 years, and I think it's time to retire them.
By the time we got out of Eddie Bauer, it was past 6:30. We'd had a long day, and there wasn't much else to see at the Outlets. Time to head home. Thankfully, the mild traffic we ran into at Lee and Great Barrington had long vanished by this point. We showed Mr. and Mrs. Miller our finds, then went online.
I wasn't up to much more than two episode of Remember WENN from the 2nd season. It's "Some Good News, Some Bad News" when Scott Sherwood sets up an all-news day, then there's nothing earth shattering to report. Scott's attempts to make news lands them in hot water, until Betty Roberts realizes that a day with no bad things happening is noteworthy in and of itself.
It's "Magic" when Hilary Booth claims during her magic act with her husband Jeff Singer that someone will pass between the doorways of life and death. There's more immediate concerns at the station as well. Scott reveals to the sponsor of Amazon Andy, Kurt Holstrom, that some of the decoded messages at the end of the show aren't making sense. Scott's the one in trouble when he decodes the messages and finds out who's really behind the sabotage. Later, Betty's still at the station...only to find that Hilary was right, and someone they thought was dead was a lot more alive than they believed...
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