Queen of the Testosterone Castle : Yard Sale Fail

Have you ever heard of the world's longest yard sale? It's called the 127 Yard Sale, and it runs through 6 states along Highway 127. I've always thought it would be such a cool thing to do. Who wouldn't love a fun road trip with your best girlfriends, finding all kinds of amazing treasures along the way? That's some chick-lit, girl-movie gold right there! So when the opportunity to participate in a similar sale presented itself, I jumped all over it.

It wasn't the 127 Yard sale- 6 states of stuff might be too much of a good thing. We were going to keep it a bit more local and try the Peaches to the Beaches sale. I'd never heard of it before my mom mentioned it to me a month ago, but it's been going on for a while. It ran through most of Georgia along Hwy. 341, and it promised fabulous home decor items and fare made by local artisans. Best of all, it ended just before you hit St. Simons Island- my favorite place on Earth. Obviously, we had to give it a try. So my mom and I abandoned our menfolk for the weekend and set out on a treasure hunt. We had high hopes that we would find more wonderful things than we could stuff in the minivan. We were sorely disappointed.

Instead of 200 miles of treasure, we found mile after mile of garbage. The home decor consisted of dusty old lamps, ragged pillows, saggy recliners, and sofas with the stuffing hanging out. There were some things made by local artisans. Unfortunately, they were things like liquor bottles stuffed with string lights, sad, balding taxidermy, and more windchimes than you could shake a stick at. The main thing that people were selling was old clothes. So many old clothes- displayed on rope strung between ladders, card tables, and rubbermaid totes. I even saw one heap of clothing in a laundry basket, and I'm not entirely convinced someone wasn't just trying to sell their dirty laundry. Stop after stop, little town after little town, this is what we found.

We occasionally stumbled across something decent, but those rare finds were usually priced so high that we just kept walking. Had I been in the market for chickens, a live turkey, bunny rabbits, a stuffed rattlesnake, or an old bedpan, I would have been in luck. But I wasn't, so I continually walked away empty-handed. I did score at one stop along the way. I've been looking for a fireplace surround for my bedroom, and I found one that was the perfect size at the only decent sale we encountered. But that was the only thing we found. Seriously- we drove halfway across the state of Georgia and bought one measly thing.

But the trip was by no means a complete loss. The Peaches to Beaches sale may have been a huge waste of time, but the adventure was fantastic. My mom and I had a great time laughing at all the hopeless junk we found along the way. And when we finally gave up on the idea of finding anything worthwhile at those dusty garbage dumps, we put the pedal to the metal and made it to St. Simons just in time for cocktails and dinner.

This view was worth the trip!

And every minute we spent on St. Simons was wonderful. Great food, great shops, lots of wine, lots of laughter. I got a much-needed break (love you, kids!!), and I got to spend time with my mom, and we got to do it all surrounded by blue skies and gorgeous old trees draped in Spanish moss. So while the sale was a fail, the weekend was a complete success. I can't wait for our next road trip, but I think we'll stick with local estate sales for our treasure hunts!