Junk Bonanza & Minneapolis // Day 1 // April 2014

If you saw THIS post, you might remember that I won tickets to a junk show called 'Junk Bonanza'. This is a show filled with tons of vendors who sell antique, salvaged, vintage, unique or upcycled items. Since we have friends who live in Minneapolis (a mere 30 minutes from the venue in Shakopee) who graciously invited us to stay with them for a few days, we went ahead and attended the event. I'm so glad we did!

It was wonderful to see our friends Emy and Matthew who moved to Minneapolis over the summer and get a taste of their life up North! We missed getting together with them for game nights and dinner dates, so it was so great to see them for a few days! As you might recall, we have visited the Twin Cities several years ago, which was a blast (post here), but to see it through the eyes of people who live there... that's a whole new adventure! :)

We left school after lunch on Thursday and drove straight to E&M's apartment, we caught up a bit and then called it a night, I'm really not that much fun after 8 hours in the car! : /

Check out this gorgeous Minnesota sunset! A trend, by the way!

The next day E&M set off to their respective jobs and we headed to breakfast, at a recommended bakery before making the short drive to Shakopee. We stopped at Wuollet Bakery and grabbed a chocolate frosted long john (KC), an apple turnover (me) and two iced mochas to go. The bakery was cute, you could tell it had around for a while. There were so many delicious looking things in their cases! Both of our pastries were good, our coffee was just ok... which is too bad.. but you win some, you lose some. Definitely stop here for desserts and breakfast pastries, maybe get some type of coffee... It's completely possible that I'm a picky iced latte consumer. :)

The drive was easy, we drove past some scenic wetland areas and then arrived at Canturbury Park, the venue, which is a horse racing park. We got there right around the time the doors opened and didn't have to wait too long to get through the doors.

At first Junk Bonanza just needs to be observed. There is SO much to see! Everywhere you look there are old globes, bins of scrabble tiles, vintage linens, costume jewelry and refinished furniture. It is a bit overwhelming but at the same time paradise for someone like me! I got so many good ideas and picked up some treasures for our apartment.

We made it to the second room and entered a raffle to win a gift card. Every six minutes they drew a name. It was pretty hard to hear at times, but KC actually won! :) He received a $25 gift card to a huge booth on the second level where we picked out a vintage card game called Rook, adorable cat book plates (worth $50!) and some fun little Scottish tartan fine bone china mugs. We only spent about $7.50, because the gift card covered most of our purchase! Not a bad way to start the day! :)

After that we found this priceless post card of a group of water skiers with a stuffed bear on their shoulders. It is so ridiculous that I couldn't pass it up! It only cost $1.

Then we made it to a booth that had a lot of more quality vintage items including quite a few things that had a circus theme. For those of you who don't know, my grandparents are members of the Shrine. So every year since I was an infant I have been to the Shrine Circus in our area. My grandfather passed away when I was in high school, but we have continued going. Every year I have become increasingly worried about the welfare of the animals, and after an abuse report just the day after we saw the show this year, I think it will be my last. It makes me really sad to end the tradition... but relieved that I won't be worried about watching those animals yearly. That was a long interjection... but it explains why I wanted to find a piece of memorabilia that could sort of represent the tradition in my life. So this booth was really cool for me, and I ended up finding a bunch of Shrine circus posters from the 1940's! KC and I, after much debate, decided on this really cool piece from a Milwaukee Shrine Circus in the 1940's. It was marked at $55, but the woman at the booth took $49 for it because we were so interested, and also because a small amount of the paper on the front is missing. I think it is going to be such a neat addition to our home, one that will add variety to our wall collages and make me smile when I see it.

What do you guys think?!?

Then we grabbed some corn dogs and cheese curds (duh!) at one of the restaurants onsite and ate lunch out on a patio. It was a sunny day in the high 60's - low 70's, so it was a great treat to be outside during the day! :)

We went in and voted on some lawn decorations with money to raise money for a Minnesota no-kill shelter (great idea! & fun to see the displays!) and then continued looking around.

Before we left we also stopped at a booth from a local store where we found a few Batman comic cover reproductions ($3 each, $9 total), a map of the great lakes from an old book ($4.50), and two Kansas flash cards ($1.50 each, $3 total).

When we left there were a few things I had in mind for the next day... but I felt pretty content with my purchases. :)

We decided to rest our legs and caffienate at Starbucks for a few hours while we each did some computer stuff.

After that we met Emy & Matthew back at their place and decided to get dinner. They decided on Pizza Luce, a local pizza restaurant, not too far from their place. We started by getting the cheese sticks and followed  it up by splitting the Pizza Luce (Sausage, Tomato, Onion, Sauce, Cheese). Both things were super tasty and we had fun splitting a casual dinner. Sometimes I think KC and I could eat pizza 5 nights a week... :)

Then Matthew went out for a bit while KC, Emy and I played dominoes back at their place.

During dinner we kept thinking about the SNL skit called 'The Pizza Eater. It is hilarious and we had to show Emy & Matthew since they hadn't seen it yet! You can find it HERE if you haven't seen it! Melissa McCarthy is so great.

We spent the rest of the night playing games and relaxing at their apartment. We started with this 'new' game I scored at Goodwill for $0.50 called 'Pass the Pigs'. Have you played it? It's crazy, you literally roll two plastic pigs like you would dice! It was really fun, and surprisingly easy to retain the scoring!

After that we played Qwirkle, which is a new favorite. It's sort of a hybrid of Dominoes, Scrabble and Set. I think it's really fun, and very different from the board games that we play most frequently. Plus it's very nice that you can purchase this one for a reasonable price at a normal place like Target. You don't have to hunt it down or shell out $50+ for it!

Then we called it a night before we set out for another day at the Bonanza!

Have you ever been to Junk Bonanza or anything like it?

Have you thrifted anything great lately?

What are your favorite board games?

Stay tuned for finds & food from Day Two!

Thank You for Reading!

XOXO,

Alexandra