On our way back from the Moore Manor Lavendar Farm we happened upon an old fixture, the Bradstreet farm stand. My mother grew up in these parts and remembers fondly going to school as a child with some of the members of the family that owns this farm.
We had stopped by on this day to see good things we could get to eat and we were not disappointed! Although it was still early in the season they still had quite a bit to offer. I grabbed a bag of fresh peas, some pickling cucumbers, two plump tomatoes, some beets still connected to their greens, and a couple zucchini. Later against the wishes of my body I’d eat the most delicious cucumber and tomato sandwhich with boiled beet greens for dinner later on. No complaints here! Well, aside from my gall bladderless digestive system which now believes cucumbers to be poison. Still worth it. The peas also served for a fun snack for me as I like them raw.
These veggies were pricier than the super market but much fresher and I can’t help but want to support these local ventures as much as I can, especially seeing how old most of our farmers are these days. On this day it was no different as a grandmotherly lady took our money at the counter and quietly laughed at our conversation.
After a long day we wanted to come back to Bangor and find something to eat but after parking we decided we were close enough to this antique store to brave the negative degree winds and check out one more place. This was surprisingly large for being directly in the city but I guess Bangor isn’t that big of a city compared to others in New England where rent prices might be outrageous. As such it was easy to get to by foot and despite having an entrance that didn’t look spectacularly large it was two full floors of stuff!
The first floor looked like any Main Street antique store – just lots of stuff in cases and likely for higher price tags. There were coins, books, jewelry, and of course salt and pepper shakers which are a must! One of the walls had what really looked like a haunted photograph of a 1920’s or 30’s child star, though I couldn’t place the name. I also enjoyed finding a manual to oral birth control from the 60’s. What you should know about taking the new pill! Do tell me.
The basement was where the cheaper and weirder antiques were that were more our style. Bizarre squirrel taxidermy, retro Halloween decorations, TONS of paintings depicting pioneers fighting bears for some reason, old political cartoons, a few lovable cookie jars, and of course a haunted doll or two. This was a fun little jaunt to end the day, worth it if you’re already walking through Bangor and seeing the sights.
Two Old Goats Antiques was the second to last antique store we decided to visit and funny enough I don’t think we’d been there before even with a catchy business name!
The first thing I noticed walking in was a wooden whale on the wall that freakishly looked like it had human teeth (on closer inspection they were rocks but this somehow didn’t make it any less distressing to look at.) The second thing I noticed was the cutest goddamn pit mix wandering around greeting people and what a good pup she was! I did not steal her. I may have wanted to.
This shop was on the smaller side but the things in it were sufficiently weird to make me smile especially in their unheated garage section where I found a box of lawn darts on the floor. I’ve heard of lawn darts and how dangerous they were but I’d never seen them and was absolutely horrified to learn they weren’t the size of regular darts. These suckers were the size of soup cans and just as heavy with a goddamn spear on the end. No wonder they were taken off the market! How many jugulars did these flying death pokers hit?!
Other fun finds included a three-foot-tall soulless Easter Bunny with nothing but gaping black voids for eyes. The tag literally read, “Buy if you dare.” And I can appreciate the humor in that! I really liked this one painting of two weird carousel horses for 35 bucks, but I couldn’t justify buying it. I don’t have a wall to put it on but someday, should I ever gnaw my way out of Dickensian poverty I shall have the most glorious and bizarrely decorated house that ever existed, displaying all sorts of uncomfortable treasures from my trips to antique stores – deathly looking portraits of Victorian children, an iron piggy bank displaying a dentist ripping out the tooth of a small child, a row of haunted ventriloquist dummies, and the kind of folk art that will make you wonder if I bought it from a mental institution. Promises, promises!
After the cryptozoology convention we needed a bite to eat so we ended up at this tiny and adorable noodle bar that seemed more like a hallway than an eatery. Still it was loaded with it’s own quirky charisma with the walls covered in Polaroid snaps of all their customers which was so retro and cute!
Their menu was also unique. I’d never seen half the options here being offered in a bowl of noodles. I took this opportunity to add peanut bits to mine. And it was really good! So good in fact I ate the WHOLE bowl in one sitting. I’ve literally never done that. Noodles bars always give you so much that I end up taking a doggy bag but not today!
I really hadn’t intended to go to any more conventions but when I brought this one up to my usual travel companion he thought it’d be a fun vacation so off we went to the boonies of Maine to see what was up in the big weird world of cryptozoology.
We got the two-day VIP tickets – because if you’re going to make a vacation of it you might as well! We showed up a little early and had to kill some time wandering for a bit while the hosts tried to figure out how to admit people. Some of the vendors were already set up so we tried walking around and looking at their goods first. There was a lovely wire artist at the door with all sorts of really cool pieces. I asked her how long it took to make them and she said about two days on the smaller ones. I wanted to give her encouragement but I knew whatever she was asking for these was too rich for my blood and instead of being insulting I never asked what they were going for. She was the only vendor that I think made no sales because of this and I felt that. I’ve been that table that’s misfitted for the venue and has goods too fine for whatever is going on. It sucks.
Next to her we found a crochet artist with all sorts of cryptid plushies and dear god were they adorable. Ended up with a tiny mothman keychain from this vendor. I figured those would go like hotcakes. Another artist had the center of the room and was doing caricatures – presumably of patrons with their favorite cryptid. The examples he had on display were rather cute, he even included one with a lot of muppets which had Nigel from Farscape hidden on there as well. I had to laugh. The rest of the room contained A LOT of the more usual items – stickers, car decals, DVDs of bigfoot documentaries, and sooo many books. My thing is to be supportive of local authors so I held myself together to say I’d be back tomorrow for some books and whew, did I ever. Came back with a haul! On all sorts of cool topics, some on hauntings and new places to go others on cryptids and weird happenings.
However the most fun was probably the reptile rescue who was letting people pet their animal ambassadors. They had a few decently big snakes, still growing for sure, a grumpy tortoise (who I could really empathize with) a skink, and a tegu. We took turns holding them all. The snakes were CRUISING, the skink was so relaxed he was limp as a ragdoll which kinda freaked me out a little bit, and the tegu, oh my god the tegu… I wanted to steal. She just burrowed into my sweater giving me a huge bear hug and FELL ASLEEP on me. God damn I love giant cuddly lizards. I’ve wanted one since I was a teenager but you know… their enclosure requirements must be enormous! This one was already maybe 1/3rd to half the size she’d be some day and that was plenty big enough! Plus the laws keep changing from state to state. Honestly, I was a bit surprised to see tegus here because of that.
After passing my lizard back to the next person we went on our way. There’d be a pizza dinner with a celebrity in the field at every table. We ended up with a comic book writer. I wish I remembered his name but I guess he did a bunch of Scooby Doos and some other neat things. He seemed very pleasant as did the couple who sat across from us who had come up here all the way from Pennsylvania! They had matching septum piercings which I thought was unique and also bought one of the mothman plushies. So we bonded on that as we ate our pizza. They had ordered 57 boxes and 32 liters of soda. I was accused of counting them but no, I was just eavesdropping when I came across this factoid.
The big event however was a viewing of Big Fur which was a documentary about the creation of the hyper realistic bigfoot sitting in the corner. This is what set the gears off in my head. I had NO IDEA there was a whole subset of taxidermists who are now doing mock mounts of extinct or otherwise undocumented animals like this bigfoot but with real fur from other animals. This particular bigfoot was made with the hair from highland cattle and the artist who created him also did a mock panda bear that looked SO REAL. Like I would think it absolutely was a panda if I didn’t know better. The reason this was inspiring to me is because I have been telling myself for years that I have enough hobbies and I do not need to get into taxidermy and be one of those weirdos lugging off dead raccoons found on the highway…. but the idea of making completely different animals out of those pelts?! You could make a goddamn unicorn! Or a snallygaster…
The rest of the audience seemed more emotionally invested in the surprise romantic aspect of the film which involved a rather messy love… square… Triangle was not the right option. Honestly, I felt that was it’s own thing and felt weird to be included but you know.. you do you. The director talked about it a little bit and we had fun with it.
The next day there was more vendors and a ton of lectures that ranged from the silly to the serious. I had no idea that loggers were… off their nuts. The amount of bizarre cryptids in logger lore is insane. Now I had loggers in my family back in the day and I feel like a lot of these are drunken big fish kinda stories but still – what the hell were these men on?! And the names of these things! I wish I could remmeber them – they would have put Dr Suess to shame.
Another lecture told us all about cougar sightings in Somerset county and how someone in Connecticut had run one over that had wandered here from thousands of miles away. I have heard stories of big cats my entire life and just thought it was a fact cougars lived here. Apparently not. The state of Maine does not recognize a current breeding population and they are therefore cryptids. The department of wildlife states cougars were functionally extinct from hunting in Maine in the late 1800’s with the last being shot in the 1930’s.
By the time the HP Lovecraft guy came up, who I’d seen before, the heat in the room and my lack of sleep previous was conspiring to land me in a coma. I may have nodded off for most of that one despite trying not to — to the point of going cross eyed.
Luckily there was an intermission where we could go out and eat at a taco truck parked outside. I tried their veggie tacos and they were the bomb. And the people were so sweet. I got a lot of compliments on my hair, pants, and purse, and was tracked down twice to see if I was the owner of the sunglasses left were I was sitting on the grass – but the sunglasses were there before me.
As we went back in we were treated to another lecture from the guy hosting the event who was telling us the cryptozoology museum was moving from its current spot to a new much larger home in Bangor and that this was also the last convention to be held in Portland for the same reason.
One of the last speakers was my favorite, it was the woman who runs a blog called Cryptozoology Facts. She seemed delightfully neaurospicy and informed everyone she was nervous but she did a good job telling us about all the bonkers cryptids she had come across and the fact her favorites were all seen only once and included a winged clam. I had to agree with her the sheer weirdness of that one would make it a favorite for me too. We’d talk to her a little bit afterwards as she offered a gift to anyone who liked and reposted her FaceBook post on the event. It was a bigfoot magnet which will now be going on my fridge…
Anyway, we had an awesome time – learned a ton about local folklore and mythology, got to speculate on what’s actually out there, and met some pretty nifty people. All and all it was a great time to be had by all and I came home with sooo many books it’s a bit ridiculous but at least they’re all signed!
You know what’s a really great way to wrap up several vacation days of antiquing? Going to a well-known diner and just enjoying a good old fashioned food coma. This place had all the ambience you’d want from a tin diner, including regulars. And the price wasn’t bad for being so well known! I had a turkey salad sandwich with fries, and peanut butter pie for dessert, both I only remembered to take photos of after I ate them. I can’t remember what my companion ate, not because I’m an oblivious twat-waffle but because it’s been several weeks since we were at Moody’s and I only remembered what I ate because I had photos… if it helps I do remember he liked whatever he orders. Like really liked it. He also already knew about Moody’s from something, probably Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives.
BUT ANYWAY! You should absolutely stop in for a pie. Their food was delicious but Jesus Christ that pie…
I love it when we go to one shop and the people there recommend something completely different, we have to go to. That’s what happened when we were out antiquing, and I struck up a conversation with the cashier who thought I “looked like someone who’d like a rock shop.” I don’t know what that means exactly but I’m not going to argue, I do like shiny things, fossils, and bones.
And as far as rock shops go this one was darling! It was streetside so great for if you’re already ambling about the city. It had the usual crystals and charms and quite a bit more utterly unique things – the skeleton of a bat, a number of bizarre games, some really chic ornaments, and some good old fashioned girl power notebooks. I loved this place! So much so I bought a book hoping to find more leads of places to go. And the girls at the counter were burbly and friendly. This is definitely the go-to shop for witchy items and whatnot. If that’s your thing by all means take a looksee!
The Bangor Antique Marketplace was what you’d expect with such a title – a large antique mall with lots of vendors and variety. I was particularly thrilled with their vast collection of wall art depicting seemingly haunted Victorian children and one photo portrait of what was clearly a Civil War orphan carrying his pa’s hat. You know, the sort of thing you hang up if you want a poltergeist..
Most of it was pretty standard fair but we did find a few cool things. One was a hand-pump vacuum?? The specifics of which confused me to no end but I guess vacuums predated electricity in every home?? It looked like a butter churn with a sucking attachment! We also found the weirdest “spice rack” I have ever seen in the shape of a 1950’s poodle mama and six pups. A few racist artifacts were spread about in the usual manner including a mammie doll that also doubled as a broom because why not? Funny enough since I have started going around to all these antiques stores pointing out these less than welcoming items I have noticed a lot less of them being blatantly visible. Are these two things connected? I couldn’t tell you, but I sometimes like to think I do have some effect on the world with my joyful chaos even though it was never my intent to make these things go away. I’m not sure I have an intent.
On the other hand there’s no shortage of terrifying clowns and haunted dolls and I would have it no other way. And this place had at least one vendor with some really instruments – mostly banjos, but weird ones.
I ended up buying a brand-new book that was at the door and clearly written by one of the cashiers. It had big glossy photos of creepy dolls taking an ocean hiatus juxtaposed next to some home-grown poetry. OUCH. Hit me where it hurts, I couldn’t leave it behind. I HAVE to support this sort of whimsical strangeness. An independent author and photographer after my own heart. I should have had her sign it! She was super pleased (and halfway shocked) I walked out with it. Maybe I was the only one… but you guys, you have to support independent authors and artists. You just have to. (And if you want to support this particular author the book was called Sea Witch; Photographs, Poems and Forget-me-Nots From a Mainer Growing Up by Kristie Billings.)
Of course, you could also do that by going through their shop and finding something nice for yourself. There was plenty to choose from! Well worth the visit!
This was another big one that took quite some time to get through. When we walked in my attention immediately gravitated towards a little plastic encased booklet reading, “Little Known Facts About Bundling in the New World.” For those of you that don’t know in the early days of our country it was customary to only have one giant bed per family, especially in the winter when body heat was a good resource to have! Men and boys slept to one side, women and girls slept on another, and directly in the middle would be a bundling board – or a little wooden fence-like thing keeping the two groups seperate. Interestingly enough courting teenage couples were allowed to sleep in the same bed in these days, in the very middle, with the bundling board in between them and their parents right behind them. I’m sure that wasn’t weird at all. Also how were babies made with this arrangement?! There seemed to be an awfully lot of them…
ANYWAY, now that I am past that disturbing little distraction I will go back to telling you about the antique store. It was another Byzantine place with all sorts of nooks and corners, a ton of vendors, and just about something for everyone. I was particularly intrigued by a series of old newspapers saved detailing big events – Elvis Presley’s Death, the assassination of Kennedy, and the Son of Sam trial. And wow, so many puppets! All of different kinds! And the weird books… I could have dropped a lot of money on weird books but I was running low at this point. They even had one with absolutely horrible misogynistic boomer humor that was beyond cringe. Even more alarming they had an official notary press for sale…. and it worked… I’m sure no ne’er-do-well will find it and use it for anything mischievous…
All and all this place was large enough yo recommend travel to pick through or if you happen to be in the area its definitely worth a visit!
After Fort Knox we both felt like the day wasn’t over yet so we set out to find some antique stores. The first one we stopped at was the Central Maine Antique Exchange. We had half an hour before it closed so our visit was abrupt but not bad. This place was sizable but not enormous – a good collection with the usual mix of haunted dolls, inexplicable buckets of doll parts, and of course a light smattering of offensively racist things – I think the winner of that went to a rubber doll named “Chief Wahoo.” It wasn’t all bad though – there was also a HUGE bucket labelled “peanut butter chips” and a lot of nice artwork on the walls. I don’t know if I would really go out of my way to see this place again buuuut I would stop in if you just happen to be in Bangor.
