So this past Saturday, we went on a little day trip. We had lunch with my mother-in-law in the teeny-tiny town of Barnes, Kansas. I've told you about Barnes before. It's darling and old and tiny and has a population of 140 people. I blogged about our little adventures there, back in 2010 and again last year. So this year, we were headed to Barnes again and I was so excited to hit our favorite antiques store in town -- Barnes Mercantile -- only to find out when we got there, that it was closed up and for sale. Sad. Sad, sad, sad.
Incidentally though, I looked up the building (built in 1895) and it's for sale for the low, low price of only $69,000. It even has a theater on the second floor! (See my post from last year) Sooooo, if one of you lovelies would like to buy it and open an antiques store in it again, I promise to come visit at least once a year!!! :) Haaa!
That was all a bit of a side track, wasn't it? So the point of this story is that while we were on our way on our road trip, I asked Bartley if there were any other little towns along the way, that we could stop in on the way home, to poke around for some antiques and he suggested Alma. And it was a good thing too, since the Barnes Mercantile was closed!
So when you're driving along the highway, you'll see signs for "famous Alma Cheese" and we joked about stopping in. But then when we got to Alma, we decided to look for this creamery after all, where they sell famous Alma Cheese. See that building above? We found it! Pretty non-descript, wouldn't you say? ;)
And this is what you see when you walk in the door. It was tiny. But it looked like, by the size of all the attached buildings, that the creamery itself must be a fairly decent sized operation.
Just look at all that glorious cheese. Notice on the second shelf from the top? That's cheese in the shape of the state of Kansas! Hahaha! That made me laugh. Needless to say, we brought home several varieties of cheese and cheese curds from the Alma Creamery and darned if it isn't GOOD! I love cheese. Sigh.
So once we left the creamery, we drove to the little main street. This is my favorite part of little towns out in the middle of nowhere. The little old main street with some of it's buildings built in the late 1800's.....buildings that make me wonder what must this street have looked like when all of this was shiny and new. I wish I could have seen it in it's hayday!
We chatted for a minute with a guy doing some construction on the building above. It was built in 1887 and he's turning it into a Bed & Breakfast. Eventually. He's got a ways to go yet. But isn't it a pretty old building?
That's where we headed for antiques.....see that sign? Antique Emporium.
It was one of those old antique stores that had room after room full of stuff and you just keep going thru doors and rooms winding your way through the place. I got to the back, back room which was really full of just junk, but I saw that staircase and couldn't resist stopping to take a picture. Ohhhh, how that wood work makes my heart beat a little faster. I wanted so badly to ignore all that dust and filth and head up those stairs to see what treasures might be waiting up there! Maybe just not in flip flops. :)
And once again, those stairs made me think about what must that staircase have looked like when it was polished and shining, brand spankin' new. I wish I could have seen it way back when.
At the end of our little antiquing adventure, these were the treasures we brought home. A book with the most gorgeous colored worn out old cover and a Lava Soap box which was pretty faded out on the other side, but the typography on this side was nearly perfect!! Score! It'll be perfect in the studio!
Happy day,
