127sale, episode 4. In which I discover I am not a horse whisperer.

If you've scanned the Saturday newspaper bright and early, drinking coffee from a favorite fleamarketed mug, then driven around your neighborhood looking for garage sales, then you'll be glad for the 127sale.  Someone has taken all that scanning and guesswork (but not the driving nor the coffee) out of the morning mix.  Just get in your car, get on the 127, and drive.  The sales will find you.

After that first small sign and first small sale (and first friendly-yet-slightly-freaked-out-by-our-enthusiasm seller) just south of Frankfort, we started seeing big open areas along the side of the road with goods-laden tables and tents blooming with secondhand commodities eagerly anticipating a third hand.  Sometimes there was a group of 4 or 6 vendors, sometimes a dozen, but there were at least a dozen areas where there were hundreds.

The 50 miles we allowed per day were fairly generous.  After a whole day of driving, pulling over, haggling (more on the art of the haggle another day), visiting (an essential part of the haggle as well as just a neighborly--and fun!--thing to do), snacking (careful you don't oversnack), then driving and pulling over all over again and again, you get kind of worn out no matter how much you enjoy fleamarketing.

I admit to getting a bit worn out by the end of each day, but I was never bored.  Mari is a born fleamarketer, having grown up hosting and shopping garage sales. I'm a late-comer to the experience, but I'm here, baby!
I loved fleamarketing the 127sale. You know your limits and you will quickly learn your spouse's, partner's, or friend-that-you-dragged-along's limits.

We did get to the point, though, where we actually skipped sales, especially smaller locations. Once we realized there were big lots and fields and open areas right along the 127, we decided to forego the single-family sales. There was no way we would get through our 50 daily miles if we stopped at every sale--that's how many there were. You will drive barely a mile or two before you make another stop.

For sale were plenty of small, packable (with bubble wrap!) items as you can see from these photos. Collectibles of every variety (and condition and price), records, books, clothing, boots, rugs, lamps, quilts, dishes, tins, pottery, art, cameras, tools, toys...
you-name-it!

I'm kind of addicted to
you-name-it.

We were very fortunate with the weather.  For some fateful reason, we are ALWAYS very fortunate with weather when we travel, but we do always travel with our lucky umbrellas.

Some day I will attempt to entertain you with what I consider the essentials of travel.

There's a list.

There's ALWAYS a list.

Sunny and dry (a little humid, but no rain) the entire time, it did get a little warm (it's summer for heaven's sake!), especially when there was no shade.  Lucky for us, we were able to cool off with some fresh, horse-churned ice cream.

That's me and Susan, the ice cream churner.  Susan kept trying to lick me from the perch atop her custom tread(hoof?)mill, providing Mari that skittishly anxious forced smile on my face you see here that she photographed at just the right time to embarrass me for(digitally)ever!

We had a creamy cool cuppa Susan-the-churner's vanilla ice cream to cool off while we took another special moment to savor the landscape.

More on what we spent our grand total of $112.85 on next time.  Okay, I'll give you a hint, but you-name-it don't come cheap!