World's Longest Yard Sale

Every year during the first weekend of August, the Highway 127 Sale occurs

It stretches from Hudson, MI to Gadsden, AL
It's also known as the 500 Mile Long Yard Sale..but since the distance keeps stretching each year- it is now 675 miles long!
People set up their goods all along Highway 127, which is a road that stretches through Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan.

This year was my 3rd year going. The first time I ever heard about it was on HGTV, they do a special on it every year. I lived in CA at the time, and I flew to TN, rented a car, and just started driving!
My mom and my Aunt Polly came along as well, and we had a great time.
I wasnt selling on Etsy at the time, I was just buying for myself..and since I flew there, it limited what I could buy.

But once I opened my vintage Etsy shop, I knew this was a sale I couldnt miss......miles and miles of undiscovered treasures awaits:)
Last year, we took our cargo van, which does not have air. This was August, in the South, in a van with NO air conditioning. I filled a huge tupperware container with ice at our hotel every morning, it would all melt within an hour. But we would dunk our faces in it every time we stopped at a yard sale..it provided some temporary relief... but the heat was still unbearable!

This year, since I was about 6 months pregnant- I knew we would have to rent a van with air conditioning if I was ever going to make it through 5 days of yard sales!

My husband, the awesome chauffeur that he is, drove us the whole 15 hours down to Gadsden, AL to where the sale starts. We had a blast, I always have fun when I am with my hubby- but then combine miles and miles of yard sales, and I was in heaven!

Here I am with a giant pink elephant that was by our hotel in  TN

We would drive as much as we could each day, and hit up as many yard sales as we could.

Sometimes people who just be set up at their house, and sometimes there would a whole field full of vendors!

This year I did a little more planning as it was REALLY hard to find hotels last year, we would have to stay way off of route.

This year I estimated that we would drive about 100 miles a day, and I booked a hotel in that general area- it took a lot of the stress out of the trip!

We started shopping on a Wednesday, because even though it officially starts on Thursday- people set up early.

I only have a couple of rules:

Rule #1     Stop at every single sale, until it's Day 3 and then I start doing what I call "drive-bys ". Mike drives real slow and I scope out the sale from my car, and see if it is worth stopping. There are so many sales, its really impossible to stop at EVERY single one. 

Rule #2     Dont eat at any chain restaurants that we have back home. I like to stop and eat at little places along the way, and it always ends up being more interesting!

By Day 4, this is what our van looked like:

Entire floor was covered, we needed to start stacking upwards!

When you start going year after year, you remember certain people.

This guy was one of them:

He is a little off the beaten path, so he has a lot of really creative signs enticing you to come and visit him and see what he has for sale- and he never disappoints! I got a brown desk lamp, black and yellow metal numbers, and industrial baskets from him- which are all still for sale in my shop!

He always makes cool sculptures out of junk, but they are not for sale!

So if you are in the area, definitely take the drive down to the Highway 127 Sale.....I promise you will have a good time! 

We made it through Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky- hopefully next year we will make it all the way to Michigan!