An Adventure in Buffalo Bills Country

My husband has 6 days off over the holiday weekend and so we were trying to find something to do to fill the time. Plans to go away for the weekend fell through and so there we were wondering how to fill the time.

Hey, let's go to Vidler's!!

I had been wanting to go for awhile having heard about the old-fashioned 5 & 10 department store located in East Aurora, NY. It would be a two hour drive for us heading west toward Buffalo, NY......

This buffalo is a steadfast symbol of the area, standing there,

rain or shine, (lots of) snow or sleet! 

Buffalo Bills football country. Oh yeah! Never even thought of that till we got closer to the area and there were indications that fans were around! Our house does not currently have any Buffalo Bills fans!

No matter! Onward and westward.......we decided to take the drive and call it a day trip. I made chicken salad sandwiches for along the way and we were going to eat dinner at one of the many restaurants in the small, quaint, historic town.

And so our adventure began.

Once off the thruway, the drive takes you on winding country roads through beautiful Upstate NY. I love the farms and fields of corn. We came upon these turbine windmills and with the darkening sky and their very slow movement, it was an almost eerie, alien-esque movie feeling we got while driving by...

We made it by with no major injuries to our souls :)

The store website is full of information on Vidlers and their reputation is that they have ANYTHING you would want, from modern to nostalgic, and pride themselves on carrying all the old-fashioned items of a 5 & 10 of years gone by. You are advised that it could take you 2-3 hours to go through the two full floors of stuff. Here's why.....

In the gift area, stuff for bikers and their babes...

Any and all of the old toys and games

Gag gifts like instant underwear, and cupcake dental floss

Outdoor games

Hair and beauty accessories



                                                        A rubber ducky for any occasion

Kettle corn in a machine and local maple syrup products

Candy by the pound ($8.99 a pound!)

And candy bars, old-fashioned and everyday

Need a pack of gum? Or 10?

Oh, and the bacon and pickle products. There were

even candies to taste like brown gravy.

It's a little blurry, but yes, you are seeing Pickle lip balm and Pickle mints, Bacon Frosting, Bacon Toothpaste, and Gummy Bacon. There were bacon shaped bandaids and a bacon wallet.

More old-fashioned games

Remember Lamb Chop? There were puppets and talking stuffed

Lamb Chops.

Very cute Pop Goes the Weasel!

Two many lunch boxes and things to go with to fit in the picture.

I didn't see anyone trying this....I imagined that it told your secrets out

loud if you stepped on it!

These were tempting but I still had my extra large Chunky

candy bar to eat from the other section!

70's bandanas in every color

This won the "ugliest purse I have ever seen" contest

 (the contest that was going on in my head!)

At the beginning you saw a glimpse of the outside of the store

which stretches for a good part of the block. Near one end we

found this gentlemen...."Vidler on the Roof"?

And so after 2 hours we were done going through all the stuff. We wanted to explore the town a little. With two hours to go before dinner and being that it was Sunday, a lot of places were closed for the day.

We could only enjoy the Elm Street shopping district through my camera lens. There was an antique store, an art gallery, a bakery and a florist.

We did find a cute ice cream place housed in an old train caboose. An electric train ran around the top part of the building.

Having ice cream at 3 p.m. did not help us be hungry enough for dinner in town so we were on the road again heading towards home. We did find a few places to stop along the way and of course I found a few vintage things to pick up at a Barn Sale at The Farm.

It started pouring as we left but by the time we reached this sign it started to clear up and become sunny skies again....

Our adventurous day ended that evening at the end of the thruway in Webster, NY at Proietti's Italian Restaurant. I worked there for 14 years as a waitress and they still have the best Italian food in our area.


Sandy, my friend and owner, picked up our tab for dinner, which was the perfect ending to our day trip.

What adventurous things did you do this Labor Day weekend?

AnnMarie :)

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