Al was up early and out the door with Roger and Ken as they stopped by on their way to Dyersville from Dubuque. Marilyn had the morning off, since the main thing on her agenda was to browse through the displays in the toy museum and the high school...but this would not happen until after 2pm.
Al took the guys around the yard sales and to the Scale Models factory, where they got to see the tail end of the process to ship out the current model of pedal tractor that on the assembly line. They checked out a few of the other sales that were open early and by this time the outdoor market in the parking lot of the sale barn was set up and they were able to go through there.
Marilyn had gotten in to Dyersville, parked at the high school lot, then walked across the way to the museum, where she picked up the floor pass buttons for her and Al. These $25 buttons gave us the right to "preview" the vendors from 2-6pm and would get us in for the three days of the show. After the tickets were purchased, she called Al and found out they were at the sale barn about 4 blocks from the museum, so rather than move the truck and lose a premium parking spot, she walked up the hill to meet the guys.
After a pass around all the vendors there, it was time to go downtown for lunch at Nora's again...we were becoming regulars. After lunch, we killed some time walking through the tents that were set up on the lots around the plaza and museum. Then it was time...2pm...time to get down to business.
We went through the museum vendors...everything was pretty high priced and these guys were not budging at all in their prices. According to them "the prices are already too low"...that mixed with tired from walking already meant they weren't seeing any of our cash in their tills.
We walked over to the school to see if there was anything better over there...and there was. They gym had its share of those guys with attitude, but as we worked our way through the hall displays and the dioramas in the classrooms, we actually had a couple of things to carry out to the truck.
We met up with Roger and Ken out in the Shopko parking lot next to the school...they hadn't been through the school yet. We were going out for supper, but they wanted to shop around a bit more, so Al stayed in the truck and read his magazines and Marilyn checked out the Shopko.Once we were all done with buying for the day, it was time to go to the Ritz for their "all you can eat" jumbo shrimp Friday special. Wow. The place was packed and with good reason...the shrimp was fabulous...and there was lots of it. Too much, in fact...we could hardly move when we were finished. Of course, it could have been the 10 miles we walked today...but more likely it was the fact that we were stuffed.
By now, we were pretty much shot for the day. They guys want to get up early to be at the school for the big auction that starts at 10am, so they will pick Al up at the camper again. Marilyn will get the camper cleaned up, closed up and hooked up for the start of the trip home.
Originally, Al wanted to stay until Sunday to get in on some of the last minute deals that one gets when the vendors just don't want to be bothered repacking and hauling the stuff...they just want to get rid of it and that is when you get the best deals. That plan changed to leaving by 6pm on Saturday and getting halfway home...then it changed to 3pm...then after the day we had today, it changed to 12 noon.
But that could all change again...
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