We're back from the world's longest yard sale. It was hot, exhausting, and lots of fun. In the evenings we returned to our motel room in Harriman, TN, hot, sweaty, dirty, and exhausted and flopped down on our beds for an exciting evening of TV. One evening we had enough energy left to go across the street for dinner. The other evenings it was take out or call for a pizza. "Wild women", Gail called us.
We drove about 25 - 30 mi through middle Tn and took our time looking at most of the sites where tents were grouped. At first we stopped at a couple of single houses but soon decided that the treasures waiting for us were not at these houses where we saw mostly old clothes, glass ware, and outgrown kids toys. After all this was a yard sale, lots of junk. We learned to look for churches, town parks, or fields where tents were grouped and sellers were more likely to have antiques or old items we might find interesting. I didn't have anything specific that I was looking for except anything that would make good painting surfaces, which I didn't find. I found myself looking for old books or magazines with great pictures which I did find a few. I love the old graphics and find them very inspiring and we did find some treasures. I had lots of fun looking but really didn't buy much.
At one point I thought I had possibly, perhaps, maybe found an old school book from my childhood that I have been trying to find. A lady seller with lots of boxes of books, and who really wasn't organized for the sale, claimed to have the book "somewhere but I don't know which box it might be in". Well, I looked at every book in every box (I really would like to find this book) and didn't find My Little Indian Pony. I think she was just wanting me to help her organize and find other books I would buy. "I must not have brought it with me." she says. If she is not any more organized at home and she does actually have the book, she may still never find. Oh well, I'll just keep looking. This was a book with a picture of an Indian pony that I traced and traced until I found that I could actually draw the pony freehand. This, along with lots of horse related coloring books, were my first artistic efforts.
Gail found some great buys that she can use for her mixed media art. It was lots of fun looking through the old magazines, music, and papers she discovered. You can read her review of our trip (she is a much better writer than I am) and see photos of her finds on her blog at www.shabbycottagestudio.blogspot.com. She has also included more trip photos.
Gail and I had been talking about going on this excursion for many years, saying "One day...". Well, now we have done it. We had a great time and enjoyed ourselves immensely, but, decided that we would not do it again. We are both old shop owners who no longer have shops and saw many items that we could have been excited about for our shops in the past. We also decided that it takes more to get us excited these days too. If we were antique dealers, or furnishing a house, or buying for a business we would have found more to purchase.
Now we're talking about more excursions to our favorite locations the Raleigh Flea Market, Liberty Antiques Festival, Cameron Antiques Festival, and we would like to check out the Metrolina Flea Market in Charlotte. There are always more exciting trips to plan.
