Pink Elephant Antique Mall, Livingston IL: We Thought We Had a Clue

We had no idea what we were walking into at the Pink Elephant Antique Mall. Well, we thought we had a clue, but once we got there, it turned out we had NO CLUE.

It’s a Harvest Hosts stop in Livingston, Illinois, so we parked the bus for the night, Zach walked the dogs, and then we headed out to see what was there. The honest answer was everything, and none of it was in one place, since stuff is scattered all over the property, so that first lap was mostly us wandering around trying to figure out where to even look.

A T-Rex, Aliens, and Giant People Outside

We were on the right side of the building, so the first thing we saw was a T-Rex with a flying saucer hovering over its head, and that turned out to be only the warm-up, because the pink elephants started showing up soon after and never stopped. They were inside and outside, tiny and enormous, and it didn’t matter where we looked.

Zach got his picture with the T-Rex while I walked around to the back to get a photo and a video of the alien and the spaceship, since there are aliens and spaceships tucked in all over the property. We usually move through places like this pretty quickly unless there’s something to read about a statue, and there was a lot right there to look at. The big people were everywhere, too, including a giant surfer guy in a pink shirt and white shorts and a Muffler Man over by the fudge shop dressed as Donald Trump, who you can see in the background of the photo of Zach with the pink elephant.

Bigfoot, Lincoln, and a Rubik’s Cube

Bigfoot stands right out front of the Mother Road Fudge and Candy Shop, and we spent a few minutes cheesing it up with sasquatch, which meant I grabbed his hand and made faces at him while Zach got his turn with a Lincoln statue.

After Bigfoot we hit a few more statues, including a Rubik’s cube. We’ve been to the World’s Largest Rubik’s Cube, so this one was a lot smaller, but it still earned a photo, and by then it was hot, so we headed inside.

Inside the Pink Elephant Antique Mall

Inside is huge, with an upstairs, a downstairs, rooms, and hallways that felt never ending. The booths and shelves are packed all the way up, and if you look high on the wall on the main floor you can still see the school’s Eagles mascot from back when this was a high school. The stairs between floors are painted yellow and purple with a Route 66 sign on top, and somewhere in the middle of all of it there’s a small candy shop. We didn’t buy anything in the antique mall, but we did try some fudge samples, and mine was chocolate mint.

Zach had more fun inside than he did outside, which tracks, because he’s the one who finds the random stuff in places like this, and this time it was a Pee-wee Herman doll with a pull string in the back. He pulled it, and the doll talks, but in a slow, muffled voice, like it’s been underwater for about ten years, which made Zach let out an evil, grinchy laugh. The thing is wrong, and there’s video.

The Field and the UFO House

Once we finished inside, we went back out for the rest of the outside. Out in the field there are more giant pink elephants, a metal giraffe, two giant penny-farthing bikes, and a Muffler Man in a Harley Davidson shirt, and the fire truck parked out by the road is covered in skeletons for Halloween.

From there we went over to the UFO house, and I had no game plan and no idea what it even was, so I told Zach to just start recording. Once I got close enough to see how it was set up, I shook the alien’s hand, yelled “Peace Out,” and walked right into the UFO and poked my head out the little window, and it’s a good thing there was a full floor in there. There’s also a TV and a little viewing setup inside, but nothing was playing, so that turned into a whole “take me with you” skit, and Zach ended up pretending to hold a finger gun to the alien’s head.

So Many Pink Elephants

I have to go back to the elephants, because they really are the whole place. Inside, they start small, like a $4.99 knit one, a plush musical one, an embroidered fabric one, and one made out of a wicker basket.

Outside, they keep getting bigger, from the metal one by the fudge shop to a giant head over the awning at the ice cream diner, and finally the giant statue, which makes me look tiny, and there’s even a white one stuck to the brick wall.

Ice Cream at the Twistee Treat Diner

By then we’d earned ice cream, so we went to the Twistee Treat Diner, which is in a building shaped like an ice cream cone, and inside there’s an Elvis statue and a pair of Blues Brothers, and we had ice cream and it was amazing.

On the way back to the bus we passed a couple of old police cars, the little one first and then the longer one, which looks like the Bluesmobile with the loudspeaker on top and a flat tire, and that one was the last thing we saw before we got back to the bus.

Back at the bus we sat in total comfort and called the whole thing an experience, and from the first lap to the last bite of ice cream it took about an hour and a half.

A Little History

The mall is the old Livingston high school, built in 1929, with about 30,000 square feet of booths. Wayne and Tonia Pickerill opened the Pink Elephant Antique Mall there in 2005.

Would We Go Back to the Pink Elephant Antique Mall?

It’s cute, and we would go back, and not just to park. We’d wander it again, because an antique mall changes: new pieces arrive, and booths and products turn over.

Nobody mentioned the Adventure Card to us, and I would have done it. It’s a $14.99 card with 15 questions you answer by exploring, and one of the four stamp stops is the Area 66 Haunted School. I don’t do haunted houses, so I would have talked the haunted school people into just stamping my card, even if they wrote “wimp” across the spot.

Livingston isn’t far from St. Louis, so if you’re in the area, we also visited the World’s Largest Chess Piece, took the Anheuser-Busch brewery tour, and toured the Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate factory. For more Route 66, the Red Rocker is over in Missouri, and you’ll find more weird stops on our Illinois page.

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