Day 4

We both checked the windows before we went to sleep but our cumulative exhaustion prevented us from seeing that one of the windows was open about four inches. Shivering with the beginning stages of hypothermia, we only discovered our error at around five AM. After a few hours of non-icy rest, we woke up and started our quest to explore the left side of the freeway near Jamestown.

We headed directly to the field where we had left off the day before and made a beeline to a gentleman selling a bull blinder. (www.stearns-museum.org/bhtc/media/catalog_pics/bullblinder.jpg) I wanted to have Christine try it on so I could determine whether or not it could be used as a costume or as a "mask" of sorts for other types of play. She tried it on but the fit was not ideal and so I passed on it. Instead however I did purchase two small boy (?) dolls that appear to have breasts and a branding iron with the letters "M", "R" and "W"; both were oddly intriguing and quelled my inverted desire for a cool purchase.

Moving on, we came upon a father and son duo who had a lot of jars still filled with pills and a sinister looking West German retractable baton. The boy said he found the baton while playing in a field and I wondered how one could just come across an item like this...

The next booth over we met a talkative old gentleman who had a bunch of interesting items. While we shopped he told us about how he married his high school sweetheart and that they had been together for forty-nine years. He remarked that his marriage had lasted so long due to the fact that he had "her and him" in the relationship , meaning his lady and the Lord. I bought, among other things from him, a vintage enema bulb.

The day's shopping proved to be fruitful and a lady even recognized my Eagles of Death Metal shirt and commented on how she had just seen them in Alabama. Christine bought some delicious cookies from an Amish child and a weird man may have (in Christine's opinion) thought we stole a Boy Scout mess kit from him.

After 8 hours of shopping we headed out and stopped at the place where a sign that I had seen on Flickr weeks before was hanging. It said Country Plowboy and had a picture of a red headed boy working the field with a mule. I loved this sign for the double entendre. When I wondered if it was crazy to ask if it was for sale, Christine looked at me and said, "You KNOW you're not leaving here without it right?" The owner of the sign, named Elroy Coop as it turned out, was surprised by my offer and I don't think really understood why I would want his farm equipment sign. He was happy to tell me all about how he'd had it painted to resemble himself as a young farmhand. When I told him I had seen the picture online, he said, "The Internet? I can't even turn that thing on!" Once we settled on a price, we unhooked the sign from the post it was on and hauled the fairly heavy six ft. by four ft. sign into the van. I got his cousin's email address and promised to send him a picture of the sign once I got it home to San Francisco.

We then had high high hopes of finally leaving the Jamestown area after three days and set off with the intention to drive to Kentucky to sleep for the night. We got about five miles outside of Jamestown and saw a campground with vendors that we immediately pulled into. The woman who ran the place was about eighty-five and was nice as pie. She tried for about five minutes to show us that her mangy mutt could do a trick, called the "belly up". The dog was not having it and did not turn over for a tummy rub - not once. During this time her ninety year old husband showed up and decided to share with us how the dog would only poo in high grass... all the while the woman kept repeating "belly up, belly up, belly up."