Road trip: Find antique heaven on the Eastern Shore

EXMORE, Va.

Buckle up, folks: It’s time for another excellent road trip!

On this day, because we hadn’t been there in who-knows-how-long, we headed over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel and chatted and talked and spoke kindly of absolutely everyone we knew until we arrived at our destination – The Blue Crow Antique Mall in Keller, Va., about seven miles north of Exmore.

It claims to be the second-largest antiques mall in Virginia with 250 dealers under one roof – 35,000 square feet of period furniture, estate and vintage costume jewelry, decorative arts, Christmas goods, nautical antiques and vintage hunting and fishing gadgets, decoys and tools and, for good spirits, a wine shop.

It’s true. There’s all that and more.

Wear your walking shoes.

We burst through the door and immediately headed to the right so we could make a proper circuit through the place.

So what did we find? Well, for starters, oyster plates galore. And tons of pressed glass.

And commemorative china celebrating British royals. Not Will and Kate, but china celebrating the doomed union of Charles and Di, of poor Fergie and of the Queen herself.

We paused longingly beside a brown transferware compote and briefly considered how we could include it in our collection. The Staffordshire was marked “Tillenberg Clementson Bros.” Mighty tempting with its $25 price.

We wandered past the selection of vintage postcards, painted tins and inexpensive embroidered English linens until we came to a screeching halt in front of a set of Sheffield silverplate in a box. The knives in this English set had Bakelite handles. The lot – a handsome set whose pieces had a nice weight in the hand – was marked $75.

We admired a sweet oil painting of roses in a sea green bowl. Only $45.

They had Depression glass in pink, green, amber, blue and no end to the selection.

If you’re not into glass, it’s the kind of stop in the road where you can stumble across Meissen for a pittance. We found lovely, hand-painted porcelain plates for only $49 each.

Oh, and they were 20 percent off that day. Lordy, lordy.

Around another corner was fine English, French and American majolica, more oyster plates with a Haviland Limoges mark, and Roseville pottery.

Vintage clothing was a good buy. We saw several pairs of finely made leather gloves in small sizes, some for only $10 a pair.

Cast-iron flower frogs had a sculptural appeal besides being reasonable at $12 to $14.

After examining every inch of the main floor, we came to the back rooms. And nearly fainted. We didn’t remember how much stuff was back here.

We breezed past the Barbie dolls and vintage Christmas items to see the furniture: an oak pie safe for $425, a Hoosier highboy for $950, tables, chests of drawers, chairs, an oval butler’s table with a brass rail for $55.

We wished we needed one particularly beautiful, round oak table with three leaves, rope detail around the edge and unusually shaped, reeded legs. It was $395.

After we’d worked up quite an appetite, we headed for the cash register with our two finds of the day: a silver cracker tray, English and electroplated, for $12. Cocktail hour will be forever elevated. And we scored a hand-painted, porcelain demitasse from Germany. We paid $9 and, since we collect this particular porcelain, we knew it to be worth far more.

It was a fine, fine day. But it was also way past lunchtime.

We climbed back into the car and headed for Big’s Place – The Gaskill Family Restaurant in Painter. This clan runs a casual eatery, featuring all kinds of seafood, a little barbecue, some steak and chicken, soup and tempting lunch specials.

Last time we were here, we tried the “swelling toads” – crispy little critters, a nonpoisonous variety of blowfish perfectly seasoned.

This time we sidelined the full menu in favor of a special: tender fried oysters with a side of deviled eggs. Yummy, yum, yum. Then we had a piece of apple pie. A la mode, of course – we still had miles to go and needed our strength.

We headed south, toward home, but were almost immediately distracted.

Back on Lankford Highway, otherwise known as Route 13, we noticed a sign a few miles down promising yet another antiques mall. So we veered east onto Exmore’s Main Street and found Exmore’s Antique Emporium on the right.

With more than 40 dealers, this was yet another treat. We found that the inventory ran the gamut from original art to comic-book collections. They had furniture, vintage linens, china, glassware and jewelry. We browsed and made a mental note to come back soon.

Next door, we found an adorable lunch option. The Yellow Duck Bakery Café is a kid-friendly micro-bakery that offers locally roasted organic coffees, espresso drinks, smoothies and daily lunch specials. The Duck’s chicken salad is fabulous, we were told by the fellow in the antiques shop we’d just left. Sometimes, he confided, they add cranberries, making it very special. And, he said looking kind of hungry for this late hour of the day, don’t miss the Duck’s sweet potato biscuits.

The owner of the Yellow Duck, Beth Flynn, loves to make muffins – the daily selection varies and includes exotics like apricot zucchini, orange creamsicle or mojito muffins. She also bakes cakes, cheesecakes, wedding cakes, éclairs, rugelach and all sorts of cookies.

We’re coming back.

Krys Stefansky, (757) 446-2043, krys.stefansky@pilotonline.com