April Treasure Market

Tammy held another one of her Ultimate Treasure Markets today.  She has changed it from two days to one day and held it in half of the Trade Center building at the county fairgrounds.

Friday from 4 pm to 8 pm was the time most people came to set up their booth.  Tammy and I got there before 3 pm.  Between people coming in early and all the stuff we had to do we were still setting up when people started arriving.

Saturday morning the Treasure Market started at 10 am but Tammy and I were there by 8:30 am for the people who did not set up Friday night, or needed more time in the morning to put finishing touches on their booth.

Saturday morning started nice but a weather front arrived after 9 am with strong winds and snow when I was setting up the sandwich board signs along the roads and tieing helium balloons Tammy had purchased this morning.   Tieing a floating balloon can be tricky in good weather conditions.    Three balloons were torn free from their store attached ribbons before I started to tie the ribbons extra to the balloons.

I took this photo this morning before the Treasure Market was open and everyone was completely set up.

The Market was over at 5 pm.  By the time I took down all the signs and balloons, folded up all the tables and chairs, and cleaned the trash it was 8 pm.  A long day for both of us.  Even the balloons lost most of their pep.

November shopping extravaganza

Today Tammy held her last shopping extravaganza for the year.  She held it at the fairgrounds in the Trade Center building.  The Arts & Crafts people held their "Black Friday" three day show in the Expo building at the other end of the fairgrounds.  So plenty of people came out for both shows.

Friday afternoon Tammy and I set up the layout for the vendors.  The event was 10 am to 5 pm on Saturday and Tammy was at the building before 8 am to let the vendors in to set up their booths.  I came at 9 am for a couple hours to set up the signs, blow up the snowmen and some helium balloons (and losing two balloons up in he building's rafters), toss ice melt on the pavement outside the buildings, and general stuff.  Then I came back before 5 pm to take signs down, deflate the snowmen, put the table and chairs away and sweep up the floor.   We were out of there at 7:03 pm.


Tammy likes snowmen and bought a couple of them to advertize her event.

The snowmen have an internal light to light them up at night.

On the way home we stopped at Panda Express to get take out Chinese food then drove home in our separate vehicles.  The temperature was around freezing all day.  The light snow from the previous evening was gone as we drove home.  However, on the curving road that goes down the ridge, I saw snow on the road.  I drove slowly and quickly found the road was icy.  Very icy.  I started sliding and geared down as I drove.  On the outside of the curve I saw a pickup sitting there.  I started sliding towards the pickup then caught enough traction to get back to my lane.  Then I started going towards the ditch on my side of the road.  Except it is not a ditch but a steep drove off.

By the time I got to the ditch/drop off the road had a wheel track before the drop off got serious and I had traction in that wheel track.  I stopped the sideways slide and also was able to slow to almost a stop.  By now I seen a vehicle that went off the drop off just beyond the only driveway.  I also saw lots of flashing lights from fire trucks, an ambulance and law enforcement vehicles.  Theses vehicles were in the opposite lane so I continued slowly down the hill as I was almost down to the bottom.

Once I got to relatively level ground I put my window down and told a fire department employee they needed to get someone at the top of the ridge as no one can see the flashing lights until they start down the hill.  Then it is too late to stop.

Once I got to a safe place to stop I pulled over, set my car's flashers and headed back up the hill.  Tammy was coming down after me and I was afraid she slid off the road or into another vehicle.  She had the same experience as me and ended up in the wheel track next to the road.  She stopped above the driveway.

The ambulance had driven up and a fire department employee was helping a shaken man walk to the back of the ambulance.  I could also see the minivan that went off the road.  The minivan had hit a large stump on the driver's side of the vehicle and caved the doors in.

I drove home.  Tammy had to wait for the ambulance to leave and the sanding truck to arrive as the emergency personal wouldn't let her drive the short section the rest of the way down the hill until the road was sanded.  Tammy sat there for well over an hour.

October Treasure Market

Tammy held another one of her Treasure Market expos.  The expo where sellers have antique, vintage, crafts, clothes, rummage sale and miscellaneous stuff.  Kind of like a flea market.

I never got around to holding a garage sale this year so I brought a number of boxes of garage sale items.

For this expo Tammy decided to have it only be one day.  In the past she had two day expos, and once a three day expo.   For two days expos she tried Saturday and Sunday and once a Friday and Saturday expo.  Saturday was usually the best day and the other days were slow.

Tammy's last Treasure Market was early September and it was slow.  She wasn't going to have any more Treasure Markets until next Spring but a number of her vendors convinced her to do an October expo and to have it the same weekend as the final Farmer's Market.  The last Farmer Market of the year is held this Saturday and is in the Expo building at the fairgrounds.

Tammy booked another building on the fairgrounds for this Saturday.  Everything was fine until Wednesday afternoon when the fair called and asked if Tammy would swap buildings.  The gun show suddenly outgrew the grandstand building, and the building Tammy was booked into (the Trade Center) was larger than she needed as she would have used less than half of it.  So Tammy swapped buildings to help the gun show and the fairground people.

Some of Tammy's vendors were very unhappy as they preferred the Trade Center building and they chewed Tammy out for being too nice and swapping buildings.  The old Grandstand building has steps and is not handicap accessible.  Since it has steps the vendors have to carry their wares into the building and can't wheel them inside.  We had a bit of a scare in the morning when an older lady customer fell down the steps.  She was ok but a little shaken up.  I think everyone who saw her fall was more shaken up than the old lady herself.

But the nice thing is that the Grandstand building is right across from the Expo building where the Farmer's Market was located.  People came out of one building and would walk over to the other building.

Both markets had lots of people.  In the afternoon I walked through the Farmers Market.   "Farmers" is a bit of a misnomer as I saw only a half dozen vendors selling food: squash, pumpkins, onions, potatoes, carrots and apples.   The rest of the vendors, around 40(?), were selling mainly arts and craft stuff.  I talked with one lady selling handcrafted oven hot pads and she said selling was slow.

I think most of the vendors at Tammy's market did well.  Some vendors had a slow day as people looked but did not buy their stuff.  Still, there were enough customers that most vendors weren't standing around talking to other vendors and watching the door for customers.

Most vendors set up their tables Friday between 4 pm and 8 pm so they would be ready by 9 am Saturday morning when the market started.  Tammy included free use of one table as part of their spot.  We got to the grandstand building a little before 3 pm and some vendors were already there.  Tammy and I had to measure and mark the vendor locations and I had to set up a table and chair for each vendor.

We had an old map for the grandstand from when Tammy first rented the building another year and in that map she had a two foot space between each 10 foot vendor space.  Tammy forgot this and after measuring the 10 foot vendor space on Friday we came up with more spaces than on the map.  It doesn't look good to have empty spaces and Tammy had a full building with the 10/2 set up. So I had to remeasure the spaces.

I had a lot of tables to set up and take down when the market was over.  Some vendors rented more tables.  I think 60 tables ended up being used.

Tammy wanted balloons outside and on her signs.  She bought a small helium tank and 30 balloons at Walmart.  A vendor friend of hers said the balloons didn't last long and recommended we wait until Saturday morning to fill the balloons.  So Saturday morning after I set out the signs she and I filled balloons.  Meanwhile customers started to come.  Lots of customers. We filled about 20 balloons and hung some outside near the building and then I placed two each on the signs to help draw attention to them.

As I said, I had brought garage sale items and set up three tables next to Tammy's Tastefully Simple table.  I still had to price half the items on Saturday morning.   A number of those items were Tammy's which made pricing harder.  Tammy was running around managing the market so I had to keep an eye on her booth in addition to mine until things slowed down.

Crazy, crazy time.

A busy day overall and I maybe sat for a total of 15 minutes all day.  Good thing the floor was a wooden floor and not concrete as my legs were tired enough from standing on wood.  Concrete would have been worse.

I sold lots of stuff.  I was surprised at the number of books I sold.  Quite a number of 1970s science-fiction books.  I didn't have enough room to put all of my books out on a table but when someone came along with a great interest in the books I would get the extra two boxes of books out from under the table for them to look over.  Once time a woman laughingly told me I was the devil for tempting her with more books.

"Who?  Me?"   

The empty grandstand building.

In the afternoon when it slowed down and I had time to take a photo.

In Tammy's ads she asked people bring warm outer wear or blankets for donation to the local Evergreen clothes exchange at the church down the road.  Look at all we got as donations.  In the Spring Tammy collects donations for the local Food Bank; in the Fall, warm outer wear and blankets.

Some of the balloons near the building.

Here I collected the balloons after the market was over.

The ballloons at home.  I plan to wait and see how long they float with the helium.  They are already starting to sink and I think they will be on the ground by morning, 24 hours after we filled them.

Fair in Eureka

Tammy is going to be selling her Tastefully Simple products at the Lincoln County Fair in Eureka this Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  She has a spot outside on the fairgrounds as all the inside the building spots were filled. Thursday she and I drove the 60+ miles to Eureka to set up her tent and tables.

Tammy's tent

View from the fairgrounds.

Before heading home we stopped at the Powderhorn Cafe in downtown Eureka.  It is a very small place.  The cook (owner?) was friendly but one heck of a relaxed dude.  Maybe a little stoned?  Who knows.


I had a regular size:

The Big Timber 

Pastrami, Roast Beef, sauteed mushroom, red and green peppers, onions on a Fresh baked bagette, garlic herb mayo.

Tammy had a regular sized:

Sidewinder Grinder
Ham and swiss cheese, onions, lettuce, tomato with our herb mayo.

Both our sandwiches were very good.

We were the only customers at 6 pm on a Thursday.  About the time we left the owner took down his open sign though he said he was still open to the locals who knocked on his door to get some food.

First Treasure Market

Tammy renamed her antique and flea market to "The Ultimate Treasure Market" to give her event a catchy name.  This past weekend was her first event under the new name.

She had some banners made with the new name and I put them on our A-frame signs.

This past weekend was also the weekend for the Creston Auction so Tammy had some serious competition.  Add in a cool wet weekend for making it more challenging to hold a successful event.   But Tammy did better than expected, and better than her previous events, with over 500 people attending on Saturday and over 150 people on Sunday.

Ultimate shopping extravaganza

Tammy held another one of her women's expos today - through they are now called: the Ultimate Shopping Extravaganza.

Instead of painting over the signs Tammy had a local business, Great Northern Printing & Sign Co., Inc., make banners to be placed over the signs.  They did a nice job with a quick turnaround.   Tammy got the graphic to them on Tuesday and they made ten banners by Friday afternoon.   I placed banners over three of the signs Friday night.  The A frame signs I had made for Tammy last year vary in sizes and I plan to trim and redo some of the boards to have a consistent size as all the banners are one size.

February women's expo

On Saturday Tammy held her first women's expo in 2013 for direct selling home based businesses.  She and I set up the tables Friday night and Tammy was down there before 8 am on Saturday to open the door to let the women in to set up their tables.  The expo started at 10 am and ran until 5 pm.

Also at the fairgrounds was a Prairie Sisters vintage collectible show that ran from 10 am to 4 pm, and a Bridal Expo that ran from 10 am to 5 pm. Tammy's expo was in the smaller Country Kitchen building and the other shows were in the expo building and trade center respectively.

Tammy had 31 vendors including her own Tastefully Simple table.

I came down a little before 10 am and set up the five wooden sandwich board signs and also hung a banner on the building.  I came back after 4 pm and took everything down at 5 pm.

There were lots of traffic at the fairgrounds.  Most of the traffic were at the other two events as they have been around for years.  Tammy is trying to think of a cute catchy name for her events as some people here think a "Women's Expo" is a health fair.  Tammy needs some sort of name with the word "shopping" in it.  Any ideas?

New display stands

Tammy uses stands to display her Tastefully Simple products at her expos.

This is what she used when she first moved here:

This Spring I found some of my long boards for her to use and I built some boxes to hold the boards.

Once Tammy seen her friend Eva's lightweight stands Tammy felt her boards were way too heavy.

At Tammy's Women's Expo last Saturday I finally got a look at Eva's stands and today Tammy and I bought some pine boards at Lowes.  The boards are one inch thick and I wanted to get half inch boards to make the stands even lighter.  But neither Lowes or Home Depot had half inch boards in the eight and ten inch widths we needed.  I called a local lumber yard but they didn't have any half inch boards in stock.  Tammy was impatient and we bought the one inch boards instead of calling another lumber yard.

The boards were eight feet long.   Eva had - and Tammy wanted - four stands each three feet long.   The eight inch board yielded: two three foot stands and four six inch legs.  Perfect.

The ten inch board yielded: two three foot stands and two ten inch legs.   I was two legs short.

Instead of buying another board (Tammy spent $40 on the boards so far) and using only part of it for two legs, I found a board from my 'wood boneyard' and cut two ten inch legs out it.  Tammy is like my uncles Curt and Larry where the only good wood is new wood.  Tammy wasn't happy at using what she calls my "sh*t wood" for the final two legs.

We also had to try to use her new screws instead my old used screws to fasten the legs to the boards.

I attached the legs in a way that the stands could fit into one another for easier transport.

As you can see in the stand on the left those legs were made from my crappy wood.

July Women's Expo

 A rock and gem show was in the grandstand building at the Flathead Fairgrounds and a gun show was suppose to be held in the expo building.  With the activities going on Tammy decided to hold another one of her Women's Expo today at another building at the fairgrounds.

But then the gun show decided to move their event to next weekend.  Also the Valley was chock full of activities this weekend.  Several vendors at Tammy's expo were from Great Falls and came up for the weekend.  They said they had trouble finding hotel rooms last night as everything was booked.

The people must have been elsewhere today as attendance at Tammy's expo and the rock and gem show was light.  A lot of work, little reward.

Kalispell Antique Flea Market

Tammy's antique flea market was held from 9 am to 6 pm last Saturday and 10 am to 4 pm on Sunday.  The weather forecast was for good weather on both days but fortunately the weather on Saturday was cool and cloudy.   I think that brought in a few more customers to Tammy's event.  On Sunday the weather was sunny and warm.  That, combined with it being a Sunday and the event's second day, meant the number of people who came on Sunday was much less than on Saturday.  On Saturday there were 470 people and on Sunday there were around 160 to 170 people.

On Saturday morning we were at the building over an hour early and still there were a few vendors waiting to get in and do their last minute set up.  Even though the event started at 9 am we had customers at 8:45 pm.   Most vendors were ready.

Here is the banner Tammy designed to advertise the event.

Tammy and I made signs to advertise event and help direct people to the correct location on the fairgrounds.  We had three of these signs.

In addition to Tammy's Tastefully Simple booth on the left she let me have a space to sell some of my stuff.  The customers that came were more interested in the flea market stuff than in the home-based businesses like Tastefully Simple, Scentsy or Watkins.

Saturday night I looked through some of the boxes stored in the bunkhouse and found more stuff to bring to sell.  I also brought several more tables to put the stuff on.  I sold a number of things.  Good thing Tammy didn't charge me for my booth as I didn't sell enough to pay for my booth.

The event as seen from the main entrance.  The wood floors were more forgiving than concrete floors but my legs were still tired by the end of the day.

This vendor had a number of neat signs.  I thought of my Uncle Curt as I think he is into stuff like this.  The signs weren't cheap, so while the vendor sold some of signs, they weren't flying out of there.

Tammy had a couple of food vendors outside the building.  This photo was taken on Saturday.  Sunday didn't have any clouds.

It was cold inside the building on Saturday morning and we had to get the heaters going.

We had a steady stream of customers on Saturday until mid to late afternoon.  The event went until 6 pm but it was dead after 5 pm on Saturday.

On Sunday morning Tammy and I actually got to the expo before any one else.  We had a couple who came a little before we opened at 10 am and I let them come in to look around.  This worked out for me as they bought a number of things from me   It was pretty slow until after noon as many people were at church.    We were open until 4 pm on Sunday and it was dead after 3 pm.

The Pampered Chef vendor staffed her booth on Saturday even after a long day on Friday traveling around Montana including coming back from Williston, ND.  On Sunday she had a team mate staff her booth while she caught up on her sleep.  He snuck out around 2:30 pm and other vendors and Tammy were upset that he left early.


This is what we brought back from the event including the signs, our tables and stuff.  The brown box is holding food to be donated to the Food Bank.  Tammy listed that we were taking food donations in one of her ad listings but forgot to list that we were doing so in the other listings.  We know who saw the one listing as they brought food.  We only collected a little over 31 pounds, much less than the 120.6 pounds we collected at her Woman's Expo in March.

It was a long weekend.   Overall the vendors were happy and many vendors want Tammy to continue this type of event with future dates in August and November.

Antique Flea Market setup

Now that Tammy has a few Women Expos under her belt, she was encouraged to organize and re-start an antique flea market at the Flathead County fairgrounds.

Unlike the people who are home-based direct sellers, Tammy doesn't have contacts in the antique and flea market community.  She was introduced to the woman who used to organize the antique flea markets until she quit a few years ago.  Leslie helped Tammy in re-starting things though she couldn't find her book with her contact information and only could provide some names from memory.  Needless to say it has been a challenge for Tammy to organize this event.  Add in that:

• some vendors had been burned by another person who organized these type of events, and
• they don't know Tammy

and it was tough to get people to sign on.  Then at the last minute a few vendors changed their mind or had "family emergencies" to prevent them from attending.  With all the family emergencies you'd think some major event had occurred in the Valley.  I haven't heard anything of the sort in the news. 

Friday was "set up" day.  Tammy told the vendors they could come from 4 pm to 8 pm to set up their display.  Tammy and I planned on getting there before 3 pm to get the keys to the building and to measure and tape off the vendor locations.  There were four or five vendors already waiting for us when we got there.  So we had to balance finding their vendor location with measuring and taping everyone's location.  We had to move some fairground stuff to a corner we weren't using and also had to turn on the heat as it was colder in the room than outside.

At 4 pm many of the vendors came and it was a crazy time.

We were in the grandstand building and it is an old building.  The fairground had just replaced all the doors with modern doors that also had windows in them.  One end of the building had doors at ground level.  This side had an alley that made it hard to allow many people to unload their vehicles at once.  The main side of the building - with the parking lot - had three steps to climb to get into the building with no ramp.  A hand rail is only on one side of the wide entrance.

A number of vendors are quite old and I ended up helping some of them carry their stuff inside the building to their location.  It was amazing how much they could pack into their small pickups or other vehicles.

Tammy and I planned on using my pickup to haul our signs to the fairgrounds but my pickup wouldn't start.  For sure, the battery was dead.   Once things settled down after 7 pm I went to Walmart and bought a new battery.  This is the first time I changed the battery in the pickup and I found it was more complicated than unhooking the terminal and lifting the battery out.  As a result I didn't get back to the fairgrounds until 8:20 pm  to a Tammy who was mad that I wasn't back by 8 pm.

Columbia Falls women's expo

Tammy held her Columbia Falls women's expo on Saturday April 14.  The weather conspired against it which is odd to say as the weather was so nice.  The weather forecast was the same as it has been all week: cloudy and cool with a decent chance of rain.  Saturday dawned and it was clear and sunny, no wind with warm temperatures.  It was good weather for getting outside stuff done instead of attending a small women's expo.  The attendance was less than we hoped for, even factoring in that the expo was held in the small town of Columbia Falls. Then about the time the expo was over at 4 pm the clouds arrived on a strong cool wind.  Too late.  Today - Sunday - the weather is back to overcast, damp and cool.  Figures.  Even factoring in the nice weather Tammy is going to think long and hard before scheduling another expo in Columbia Falls.

I should have taken more photos but I was busy part of the day attending my credit union's annual meeting where I fell asleep when the lights were turned down for the PowerPoint presentation of their financial numbers. In my defense I hadn't gotten enough sleep the night before as I was up late helping with making the expo signs.  I also stopped by a small auction held nearby at Columbia Falls.  Mostly guys were at the auction as the stuff being auctioned was mostly tools and "guy stuff".

So I forgot to take a photo of the expo location (inside a former bank), Tammy's new "Women's Expo" banner I hung outside the building, or any of the four large signs I placed at the ends of the street and in front of the expo location.

Tammy ended up with about 14 vendors at her expo.  It seems as if a half dozen vendors canceled at the last minute for various reasons other than the weather.

I did get a photo of Tammy's display.

Women's Expo signs

For Tammy's expos we needed better signage.  One of her friends had two large used "A frame" signs from an auctioneer who retired and quit the business.  We painted over those signs and fixed them up a bit.  Then from my scrap wood pile I found enough wood to make three more large "A frame" signs.

Tammy is having a women's expo this Saturday in Columbia Falls, MT and we've been spending this past week making and painting these signs in amongst all of our other activities this week.

Here Tammy is painting some of the signs I had made.

Tammy bought cardboard stencils for the lettering.  The stencils had white spaces in the letters.  I was not a fan of the white spaces.  I didn't mind them in letters like "E" or "P" or "O".   The white spaces in the letters: "W", "M", "N", "S", and "X" bothered me as they didn't look right.  For W, M and N, the letters were made up of three black pieces that formed the letter.  To me it took another millisecond to mentally form the letter from the three black pieces.  This is not what one wants when a person is driving by fast in the vehicle.   The X just looks wrong to me.  And the white space in the S made me think of a $.

Tammy was against me filling in the white spaces in the letters as "they were supposed to be like that".  Just because something was "supposed to be like that" doesn't make it right or good.  I went ahead and filled in the spaces on one sign to show her how the letters would look when filled in.  I included (partial) before and an after photos of the letters.  I wish I would have thought to take the photo before I fixed the word "women's" as you'd really agree with me then.

All the signs now have their white spaces filled in.

Because the stencils were cardboard, slapping paint over the cardboard was not an option as the edges would bleed and the finished letters would become crooked.  While I suggested outlining the letters with a permanent marker to get sharp straight edges and then painting each letter, Tammy wanted to fill in all of the letters with permanent marker.  I even asked Tammy to outline a few signs and I would paint those signs while she marked in the other signs but she was determined all the signs would be filled in with permanent markers.  Naturally this took longer to do and we didn't finish the signs until late tonight.

We have four signs done.  I had to paint over part of one sign as Tammy marked "WOMEN" and not "WOMEN'S".   I had to paint two coats to cover the black words and the second coat of paint is not completely dry.  I think we can live with four signs tomorrow.


Here is how the finished sign looks.  I took a big piece of cardboard I had and created a stencil for an arrow.

Creston auction

Saturday Tammy and I attended the annual Creston auction.  Tammy had a table at the arts and craft building across the street from the auction in order to sell her Tastefully Simple products.

The building is not very big and the vendors were crowded in the room. The vendors went around the walls and there was a row in the middle of the room for vendors. Tammy was in the middle row and not pleased about it. The middle row had an aisle on each side of spot and you had to choose which way to face.

Tammy and other vendors felt it was cold in the room. I got Tammy's blanket and gloves for her to stay warm in the morning.  Here she is giving me the finger for taking her picture.

A steady number of people at the auction noticed there was an arts and crafts show also going on and came to check it out.  Not a lot of people seemed to be buying stuff though.  Tammy sold some stuff and got leads on people interested in having a party or buying stuff later.  She also advertized her upcoming expo and upcoming antique and flea market show later this month.

The forecast had lots of rain for Saturday but we didn't get any.  In fact the sun came out mid-morning and stayed around much of the day.  It was quite nice.  So I don't know if it was because of the bad economy or whether the weather forecast scared some people off, but the number of items brought to be auctioned was the lowest amount I've seen in over ten years.  I think the amount of items was about 2/3 of the typical amount of items.

There was also a rummage sale in the school building next to the auction site.  Here is what it looked like.

A bidding number cost $5.  They claimed it was to pay for the security at the auction.  I don't buy a bidding number unless I think I will really get something. So I didn't have a bidding number when the auction started.   One of the first items auctioned by one auctioneer was a bundle of fence rails.  Abut 50 rails in the bundle.  The winning bid was $55.  What a deal!   There was five more bundles of rails scattered about the grounds and I decided to wait to see what those bundles sold for.  They went from anywhere from $130 to $170 a bundle.  This was more in line with what I expected.

I saw two other items of interest.  A four foot HW-brand gate and an older Trek ten-speed bicycle in great condition.  The odds were against me getting a good deal on the gate, but you never know.  More certain was the bicycle.  Bicycles tend not to sell for much at auctions.  And mountain bicycles sell better than road bicycles.  Earlier, the mountain bicycles didn't sell for much.  At one point three mountain bicycles sold for $2.50 total.   Later, mountain bicycles sold between $20 and $40. So I was confident I would get this road bicycle.

It was a nice bicycle.  It was an old bicycle as the shifting levers were the old friction style shifters and not index shifting.  The bicycle was a touring bicycle with a triple chain-ring and low gearing.  The brakes were cantilever brakes.  There was a bicycle pump with the bicycle and two water bottle cages mounted on the frame.  A mirror was attached to the left end of the handlebar.

The gate and bicycle were in the last row of items to sell.  The craft show was over at 3 pm and Tammy and I got the display packed up and loaded into her minivan before the auctioneers got to the items I wanted.

A second auctioneer started to work on the last row and for a while it looked like the gate and bicycle would be sold at the same time and I had to bounce back and forth between the auctioneers to see how close they were to the gate and bicycle.  The gate sold first.  Four other people wanted the gate and when the bidding was done the gate sold for $55.  Jeez!  You could buy a new gate for that price.

Then it was a short wait for the bicycle.  Just before the bicycle was auctioned the backup auctioneer had one of the handlers bring over the bicycle to him so he could lift it.  The bicycle was light.

When the bidding began at $10 my competition was the backup auctioneer.  Once I bid $75 he dropped out at the next bid of $85.  I thought I had the bicycle when another person bid $85. Who is this guy?!  He looked to be a 50-something overweight guy.  He certainly didn't look like he was going to ride the bicycle.  He also looked like he may have money.     I bid $95.  He bid $105.  I dropped out at $115.  The bicycle was nice but I wasn't going to pay over $100 for a bicycle I didn't have a chance to test ride.  While the frame size was large enough for me, until I rode the bicycle I wouldn't know if the other frame specifications were right for me.

I was bummed!   I was certain I would get the bicycle and even spent $5 on a bidding ticket.  I was in a cranky mood for a long time afterwards.

In a typical year there would be items to be auctioned all the way to where I was standing to take the following photo.

The sheriff's posse was also on hand for security which looked to be waste as  having law enforcement on horseback certainly wasn't necessary.

Here is a 1:27 video of an auction in progress.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUG6aZY_6BI&feature=youtu.be