Summer adventures: American Pickers

 One of our summer adventures included a trip to Canada to go fishing with my dad.  It was a vacation we had promised to take with him for years and it was finally time to make good on our promise.

We protected some time on our calendars and carefully planned a small detour to check out Antique Archaeology in LeClaire, Iowa.

We have great conversations with my dad about watching the American Pickers show and thought it would be fun to see that actual first home of Mike and Frank's enterprise.

We arrived on a Sunday and had hustled it to make it during their business hours.  We got to see their  first location and the new building, along with some of the icons from the show.  We loved the rusty car that marks the entrance.

 

We also saw this great little retro car and a few weeks later, we saw the episode when it was purchased.

 We were really surprised that the property was so small and located in town.  Our impression from watching the show was that it might be on the edge of town. The river and main section of town is just a short distance away, all along the highway.

The inside of the original building felt like home.  After watching so many episodes, we felt like we recognized a lot of the items from either watching Mike and Frank purchase them or seeing them in the background.

 

 I am a huge fan of the RUST letters.

 Remember this purchase from the show?

 This was a great display of  bike and motorcycle memorabilia.  Overall, we really expected to see more vintage items for sale.  We did buy a couple of t-shirts and poster - in true tourist fashion.

 

I really loved this little pedal car.  I think my dad has one in a similar condition, just without the wheels.  I am trying to decide if I will freshen it up for inside the house or leave it a little rusty with some nice patina for one of the flower beds.

We had a great time at Antique Archaeology. I wish we would have taken more time to shop in LeClaire, but we were off to our next stop on the marathon driving adventure to Canada.