Salvation Army Mecca :)

I went to visit my sister up in Northern California's beautiful wine country over the summer, and took the opportunity to go to a dream destination of mine, the Salvation Army mega-store commune in Healdsburg.

If you're interested in going, here's the address and phone number. It's right off the freeway and easy to find.

200 Lytton Springs Road
Healdsburg, CA 95448
(707) 433-7404

I think I went at the worst possible time in the week, late on a Saturday afternoon. Everything had been picked through, and I didn't find anything outside in the hard-scrabble bins. I enjoyed the experience, however, and also enjoyed providing the women-starved men of the rehab center a little eye candy. I got so many offers of help, I started to avoid anyone who smiled at me.

There were several stores, but no real deals. Again, I went on the worst possible day, but I was surprised to see how expensive everything was. I might be spoiled with cheap thrift. It seemed like a good place to get furniture and appliances.

There are plenty of people to help you load your purchases should you wish to get some larger items and can't lift them by yourself.

Maybe I was tired, but the furniture just bored me. I drove about four hours to get here and there was a ton of traffic because I took a wrong turn and there was no way to turn around.

It was fun to treat it like a field trip and take pictures of all the stuff. Although there were some tools, this was definitely not a destination for outdoorsy mechanical things.

It was also really hot in July. Perhaps that's why there aren't a lot of people in the outdoor photos. The stores were all full of people. I felt crowded. There wasn't a lot of walking space. This makes sense given that the property was so large and the buildings were so small.

I could tell that stuff sat in the sun if it didn't sell, so it looked like old garage sale rejects in some places. The broken stuff was depressing to me.

There was some interesting original art.

I loved this painting, but didn't feel like I could spend any money on it.

Some stuff seemed really expensive for being at a thrift store. I don't know if they had any additional online selling or marketing going on.

This place was a barn that had all the clothes in it. It seemed like the most familiar place to me. This was the only location where I bought anything. Because of the gas to get there, I was trying to be really  cautious in any spending. I bought a large framed Picasso poster, which currently sits in my store. I also bought a suede Fossil bag that has sold fairly quickly. I really like the selection in this particular store and spent the most time in there.

Questions? I'd love to add more to this post :)