Day 1 of the World's Longest Yard Sale Project

I messed up the title a bit.  You can see we had a fun first day.

Day 1: From Crossville, TN to Albany, KY

Hello, Friends!~~~

We are on Day 1 of two day and about 150 miles of traveling the Route 127 World's Longest Yard Sale! Here are ALOT of photos of this wonderful day!
This is a little north of Crossville, TN. There are quite a few clusters of vendors in this area and easy parking in grassy areas or on the side of the road.

This vendor had lots of white painted furniture and pretty high priced but nice linens.

Here is Suzy making a purchase!

Here is my very first purchase! Glass and plastic buttons and a few pink birthday cake candle holders!

This cluster of vendors is on the grounds of the Cumberland Mt. General Store in Clarksrange, TN. You can see Suzy searching intensely for the special treasure!


A little north of Clarksrange we found FOOD! Not the vendor above who we saw at Cumberland Mt. Gen. Store but a fabulous and AIR CONDITIONED bar-b-que place called appropriately the Barbeque Shack. Great food at great prices! We were desperate to take a mid-day break as the heat and humidity was brutal!
Here is one of many individual road side sales. This one is heavy on the "mantiques."


And this sale while in the shade, which is a bonus, had little to offer us.


We passed on this "monster lawn tractor" too.



Before we made it into Jamestown, TN we encountered RAIN!

But the skies eventually cleared and the sun peeked out and thankfully the temps went down. Isn't this a lovely mountain view north of Jamestown, TN?


This is a beautiful park in Pall Mall, TN the nome of the famous Sgt. York. There was a wonderful cluster of sales here.
This vendor has wonderful chairs!

This is driving north on Route 127 into Forbus, TN near the Kentucky border. There is a nice old general store here with fudge!

Near the Kentucky border the road gets hilly and little winding. We stopped at one sale but didn't find anything other than this ancient and heavilly laden pear tree!

That's it for Day 1! Tomorrow we head north and will stop in Danville, KY, about 70 miles from where we are this evening in Albany, KY. We will show off our many purchases, and there were MANY on day one, on our individual blogs after we return home on Saturday. But please stay tuned to this blog for more photos and video!~~~XXOO, Beth

Headin' Out to the Sale!!

The Forecast

Long range forecast says temps will be around 90 each day with 40% chance of showers and thunderstorms.

Photo courtesy of  Iwona Kellie

I'm not going to get my panties in a bunch just yet.  It's still 5 days out and the weather man has been wrong before.

Just in case, think I will get a new rain poncho :-/

Friendship and Yard Sales

Hello, My Friends!~~~

Five more days until Suzy and I leave for the WLYS (and doesn't she make a great video? I love it!) and 6 days until we start shopping and shopping and shopping! Now, Suzy and I like many similar things, so you may be wondering (or not!) how we shop together...
Well we have gone to flea markets, estate sales, and yard sales together for many years and have devised a system that works quite well.

1. Whoever finds a treasure first has dibs. Simple.

2. If one of us finds something that can be shared (fabric, a box of buttons, a box of anything that we like and that can be divided), we split the cost and split the goods. We will have a separate bag in the car for such goods and will divvy them up that evening in the hotel roo,

3. If either one of us spies something that she knows the other likes or needs (and actually, do we really need anything?), she alerts the other one to the item. I call it tag team shopping.

That's pretty much it! We don't need or want anything so badly that we would get into an argument over...well, that is unless Suzy decides to nab that piece of Pixieware I need for my collection...XXOO, Beth

One Week From Today!!

Just making sure the camera and the link to the blog is all set up for videos from the road, next week!!

Yard Sales: How I Roll

Hello, Friends!~~~

As the WLYS is a mere 9 days away, I have been thinking about my "yard saling" strategy. Now, I am very aware that WLYS is not a yard sale in the traditional sense, that there will be vendors in fields and along the road who have travelled far to sell their wares. I also know that Suzy and I will encounter a mixture of traditional yard sales, church sales, and anything in between. But to be honest, the whole thrill of the WLYS is the unknown of what exactly we will find.

I do have a strategy, however tenuous, for the WLYS. Here it is in list form:

1. Carry a reusuable grocery bag anytime we stop at a cluster of sales. These bags are sturdy, lightweight, and foldable. I don't really need one at single sales. My hands usually work fine.

2. Keep moving. I know it'll be hot, it is August after all, but moving is the perfect way for me to beat the heat and to see the most the WLYS has to offer. I know what catches my eye, and I will linger over those goodies, but I know what doesn't and those goods will get narry a glance.

3. Look down in boxes. I can imagine that a lot of vendors will have boxes of goods sitting on the ground or on tables, and it's wortha quick glance or shuffle through to see what's in them. Sometimes the best stuff rests in the bottom of a box!

4. Have small bills so I can give exact change! This is vital to keep moving. No one has to give me change.

5. Carry a water bottle on a strap so I can keep hydrated and have a free hands.

6. My biggest money saving strategy is to ask on priced goods: "Is this your best price?" Saving a dollar here and there adds up. It is relatively easy to get an item marked $6 down to $5. I am always prepared to walk away. I don't bargain at charity or church sales. I usually even the charge price to the nearest $5 increment.

There is a my list. It is by no means complete, and I'm sure you can add to it! In fact, please do so by adding a comment to this post on your favorite yard sale/flae market shopping strategy. ~~~XXOO, Beth

Dining Out at the Big Sale

Beth and I will be packing a cooler for sure.  Lots of water and some easy snacks. 

Along with all the wonderful junk we hope to find we are looking forward to some good regional cooking.   We are both born and bred in the south, and our mother's always kept a large container of Crisco in the cupboard.  Fried food is very familiar to us.

Normally we both strive to eat a healthy diet, but I'm looking forward to a few greasy treats on this trip :->

We've been hearing from a lot of veterans of the WLYS with some interesting tales and excellent advice.

Michaella just wrote and she has been going to the WLYS for years.  Her note included some great tips about the food.

If you're going to be coming north into KY, keep an eye out between Jamestown and Liberty for a large sale on the right side of the road. You'll see a large sign advertising an amish store. The best thing here is ice cream sold by a group of Amish people. It is churned by Horse power (seriously, a huge Horse). It is very simply made with pure ingredients and is absolutely delicious.

That sounds exactly like the kind of treat I'm talking about!

She also had this to say:

We have been to several churches in KY that have sales and some of them even serve full meals for a very reasonable price.

Church lady home cooking?  Sign me up.  We will definitely be on the look out for the church sales now.  Thanks Michaella!

OK, now I am going to jump from food to the subject of bathrooms.  I know, but one kinda' leads to the other and well, more good advice here:

Be prepared to find that even when buying gas, many gas stations in KY will close their bathrooms to the public (to keep for cleaning them so much).

We like to stop at church sales because a lot of  the time there are clean bathrooms available.

Now I'm hoping there are a lot of churchs along our route.

Photo courtesy of Robisan's

Watching out for the church sales will be Beth's job.  I'm the designated driver on this trip so our deal is, my eyes on the road at all times and Beth will be looking out for the sales to stop at.  Michaella also said:

Your biggest obstacle will be the sheer number of people dashing in and out of traffic to cross the road.

Maybe I should get a cow-catcher for the Honda Pilot just to make things easier :->

photo courtesy of psd

List Making!

Hello, Friends!~~~

Well, with less than 2 weeks to go until the BIG EVENT, I am making my list!

Now bear in mind that this list is not limited to what you see, but it is very important to me to jot down things that I know I'll need when Suzy and I hit the road on August 4th.

I usually don't divide my take-alongs into categories, but I did for this post. As you can see hand sanitizer and wipes are in My Necessary Items category along with money in small bills. That's how I roll :)

XXOO, Beth

Two Weeks To Go!

Beth and I will be leaving on our big adventure two weeks from today! 

If you recall, we are jumping off our trip from Johnson City, TN, the hometown of MamaPeach.  We will leave Virginia on Wednesday and spend that evening in Johnson City.  Then we will rise very early on Thursday and scoot over to Crossville and start our trek north. 

Lisa from Birmingham, AL sent me some fabulous links to her 2009 blog entries that she wrote about her trip to the WLYS last year.

This is some really good stuff.  She wrote about her trip in three parts.  Start here:

Then go here:

Lisa's blog entries are very interesting and she has lots of great pictures!

Sounds like she had an awesome time.

Finally go here to see all the loot that she scored. 

I'm drooling over some of the stuff in her pictures, let me tell you. 

All photos courtesy of Lisa