Longest Yard Sale Trip 2011

Love this 1952 Chevy Truck

Hello everyone :-)

Ok! so I went to the worlds longest yard sale this weekend with my niece lets just say we had quite an adventure. Good thing we both have a good sense of humor.

We live near Nashville so I thought it best to pick up the sale at Crossville TN. We got off the exit & headed south on 127 and within a minute we stopped at the first huge sale with about 150 vendors. We left there and decided to head up 127 north which we hit another huge sale. There were many large sales just about 20 miles north above the exit.

By the time we went 20 miles up the road north I had realized that I wasn't going to hit Frankfort or Cincinnati that evening like I thought because it was already 3:30. Some one had asked us if we had a hotel and I said no we would just find a place on the way, well needless to say they laughed at us and said we wouldn't find anything. Well heading up the road by the time we got to Jamestown Kentucky we decided to look for a hotel, at this time is was almost 7:00. Well there were none available. So we decided to stop in a restaurant to have a meal and think about out next step of course laughing at the thought we may be sleeping in our truck for the night. So we called the # for all the hotels and they found us one up in Lexington Kentucky. So we headed another two hours up and hit Lexington around 11:40, we would have arrived earlier but my old gps got us lost & going in circles. Anyway tired, hot and in need of a shower we made it there and rested for the night. The next morning we were only 30 minutes from Salvisa on 127 which was nice, so we made way for there headed back down south to Jamestown.

We found there to be a lot of antiques and a lot of new items. Most of the antique dealers seem to congregate around the same area which is nice if that is just what you are looking for like I was. There were large sales that were a lot of new items like metal yard art, tee shirts, bird houses, etc and of course there were a lot of yard sales in front of peoples homes.

A lot of antique sales the first 20 miles north of Crossville then a mix of items the rest of the way to Salvisa. Many antique stores also along the way. We went Friday and Saturday, Friday I liked better because of all the antiques in the Crossville area but Saturday the vendors were willing to deal more on the prices. So in my opinion Friday and Saturday are the good days to go.

Here is a list of things you might want to bring or do if you are thinking about this trip.
1. Bring suntan lotion ( we didn't )
2. Water, water, water
3. Good gps and map ( some roads are closed and gps doesn't always know how to get you around it and not all roads are marked good in the country )
4. Very comfortable pair of shoes
5. Beach bag to put items in as you buy them.
6. Book hotel room in advanced if you will be traveling in rural areas, if you are ending in a city you most likely can book when you get there. Lexington had a lot of empty rooms. The small towns sometimes only have a few hotels. :-)

Over all we had a Great Time, lots of laughs and a trip to remember and reminisce about. Will I do it again, Yes! next year I want to start up in Frankfort Kentucky and head up into Cincinnati.
Here are some of the interesting items and stops on our trip.

One of my favorite stops, there were about 200 dealers around and behind the antique store.

Fun, brightly colored metal yard art.

I love this very cool vintage seesaw.

There were not many artists at the sale so this was a real treat for me. Artist Paula Schank makes her Stac's by Paula sculptures out of vintage glass, ceramic and pottery pieces she glues together. She has a wonderful eye for mixing and matching her pieces.

Wonderful vintage machine that winds up the metal ties around the brooms that holds them together. So you can pick your straw and have the broom made right in front of you.