All's Well that Ends Well.

 Tim had the craziest idea: He wanted to go to the reservation yesterday. I dragged my feet. We had William and it was cold, cold, cold! But he was determined. I did not understand why. He wanted to go to the Salamanca Antique Mall. He wanted to get cheap gas (on the reservation, gas is selling at $2.63 a gallon). Nothing that couldn't be done when the weather was a bit more accommodating. 

But he wasn't being put off and he was prodding everyone to get ready to head off. Snow wasn't coming until 11:30. He thought we could get there before things got ugly and then leave when things started tapering off. I told him that I thought he was crazy. 

But we went, which does not say much about my sanity either.

William was anxious to go. Tim had promised him an early birthday present: One of the dealers sells polished gem stones, and tubes of gold flake, and for whatever reason, he wanted one of those little tubes in the very worst kind of way, so he joined his voice with Tim's. 

I got ready to go and we headed out. 

It was a nice morning. We stopped for a sandwich, and then hit the antique mall. 

These are from Germany. Prewar, probably from the 1920s. Elastolin. I'm not sure why they caught my eye, but they did, and they were so darn cute.

They just reminded me of something on the edge of my mind. Maybe a story book I loved as a young child. Don't know. But I studied them so long that one of the workers passing by asked me if I wanted him to unlock the cabinet. 

I hesitated at my own foolishness. I mean, it surely wasn't anything that I couldn't live without. But...

"Yes," I said. "I want those little ducklings and the rabbit in there." He took them up front for me. 

William got his gold and a small bottle of silver as well. 

Tim even joined the party and got himself a civil war lead bullet. 

We drove back home with our 'smalls', and were happy. We had filled up with gas and even had a couple gas cans in the trunk. I hate when he does this. Coming out of Bradford, there is a big hill. Right off, there was a bit of a slide, and the car fishtailed, which scared the bejeebers out of me. Tim was unbothered, and simply slowed the car down to a steady crawl. "If we can make this hill, we are home free," he said. 

"IF??? IF???" said I. 

But we made the hill, and as we traveled along the ridge back home, snow squalls began, and there were times that we knew that there was a car in front of us, but we could not see it. That is something that scares the mess out of me too. Tim just drove along slowly and steadily. 

As we were passing by the reservoir, I received a message from Cara. She'd sent a funny meme to Tim. 

She didn't know how fitting her little joke was!

But all's well that ends well. We got home safely and William spent a couple of hours pretending he was rich. We'd bought a rack of spareribs for supper, and I got them baking in the oven. (If ever was a good day to use the oven, this was it.)

Tim ducked out to deliver William back home and to show my daughter and son in law how to oil and bleed the water boiler, something that rarely needs to be done, but is important to know how to do in weather like this and is a good fall maintenance chore.

He came back in and we spent the rest of the gray evening following the football game, eating spareribs and baked potatoes and reading about our 'finds' at the antique mall. 

We switched on a couple episodes of Antiques Road Trip, and it tickled me to see Angus Ashworth and David Harper driving along in a little Kharmann Ghia. My first car was a 1969 Kharmann Ghia, like the one below. (although mine never gleamed like that, I'm sorry to say). The question begged an answer: who on earth would pass off a Kharmann Ghia as an antique car, though????!!! (Answer came courtesy of simple math. Once again I understood why math was not my favorite subject.)

Just for entertainment: