Flipping Over The Elephant’s Trunk- Part 1

This past weekend Coach and I took a spur-of-the-moment, leisurely, sunny weekend drive to Connecticut to check out the Elephant’s Trunk Flea Market. Recently featured on several episodes of HGTV’s Flea Market Flip, this Sunday-only outdoor market appears to be good competition for our local Todd’s Farm Antiques Market, so we were anxious to check it out. Along the way, we made several stops in some pretty little rural towns for arts-in-the-park, yard and tag sales and picker shops. Despite a few mishaps (if you stopped at a yard sale, and there was a woman giving a back massage to a large, hairy, shirtless man in the middle of all of the stuff- what do you think they were really selling?!)

we made it in just over three hours. Since we had decided to stay overnight, rather than drive, shop and drive all in one day, I had reserved a room at what I thought-according to TripAdvisor-was a nice inn-4 stars!! Ranked #1 of the hotels in the town nearest the flea market (granted, there are only three in the town, and one of the others is right next to the railroad tracks…) And these were some of the comments about the place.

So, I thought it would be fine for a one night stay, or would it?!

And, the rate was only $89! Unless we used the Jacuzzi, in which case it was $125. Hmmmm. We arrived to a completely deserted, graveled and weedy parking lot, facing a long line of doors, many wide open so we could see in. Well, it wasn’t quite this bad…

We entered what appeared to be the main office building, through the sliding glass doors to a small lobby- nicely decorated- that reeked of stale curry. Now, I don’t have much of a sense of smell due to an unfortunate incident involving the plug end of a retractable vacuum cleaner cord (unlike poor Marcia Brady here, at least I wasn’t going to the big dance with a new date : )

but there are two distinct cooking smells that send me running-one is liver and onions

and the other is curry. Blecchhh.

The woman at the front desk was very nice, and we did check out the available room, which appeared to be clean and would have been fine- had it not been for that completely empty lot and that horrible curry smell. I just couldn’t get it out of my mind, or my nose! So we explained that we would not be staying, and she was very pleasant and wished us well. No problem there, but now we needed to find another place to stay. Other than the aforementioned inn on the railroad tracks, the only other place in town was booked solid. So we drove to nearby Danbury, and had our choice of chain hotels. Crowne Plaza, 10th floor please : )

Sounds great being up so high, at least no one could be looking into your room from their car, but just a word of caution. When you are riding up to the 10th floor, make sure you have your bag closed and ready to go. Otherwise, while you are attempting to get your bag together, your husband will leave and the elevator door will shut before you can depart, and you will be returned to the lobby. Then people with small children getting on the elevator may think it’s strange that you are standing there alone, holding your bag, convulsed in laughter. After the check-in, we found a local nearby joint called Rosy Tomorrow’s– huge burgers, cold draft beer and great fries in the caboose of an old train. But sadly, no mud pie : (

Back to the hotel, hoping to get a good night’s sleep in preparation for our early arrival at the flea! Great, except for a few late-night (is 3:49 am still considered late night or is that early morning?) revelers returning to their rooms from the weddings being held on the premises. Coach and I still managed to arise early and we headed off to the fantastic flea market. Here’s a sneak peak,