Deddy arrived at my house at 6 am and we headed off to HWY 127 to face year two of the World’s Longest Yardsale. We have tweaked our plan of attack a bit this year.

• take more money
• pack a cooler with drinks and lunch
• stay in a hotel closer to 127
• more money (still)
• don’t look at linens (I have too many)
• don’t get swallowed up in the little stuff

We live in North Alabama so the plan was to go up 127 north of Chattanooga on Signal Mountain and do as much of Tennessee as we can staying in Crossville for 2 nights. Day one rain was hit or miss, vendors hit or miss.

Deddy cracks me up. I brought a rain jacket. He brought an umbrella. He tells me he has had it for YEARS, that he bought in Ukraine, that it was made in France, that it cost a fortune (that was  probably $15) but he needed one at the time. When he got it out of his bag it wasn’t his prized umbrella, but one he had never seen before and from Italy!!! When he pushed the button to open it, it shot out of his hand. This happened twice. Then it wouldn’t stay up. He fought with this umbrella for two stops until he left it on a vendor’s table. Intentionally or not I never could tell.

Oh, Deddy makes me laugh so much.

Signs were even more the rage this year. I saw some fantastic ones. My favorites were the paint store signs. Unfortunately they were all on the back of trucks when I saw them! Sold!

A lady I follow on Instagram “Whatever is Lovely” did a series recently while on vacation in Hawaii called, Tourist of Hawaii. She took candid pictures of people she came across and they were fantastic. It gave me the idea to do a series about the people I come across at the WLYS because in truth they are key to the experience. I called this series “Characters of the WLYS”. I posted them on Instagram but will share a few of them here too. They are characters, interesting folks with a story to share.

Introducing the Fried Pie Lady.

Last year we bought fried pies from a lady at this settlement of tents but she wasn’t there and we were quite disappointed but we drove on… Not 5 miles down the road we meet another pie lady. THE fried pie lady.

I did a U-turn.

She begins baking at 3:30am and makes 4 at a time and sells them in her front yard. She has apple, peach, blueberry, cherry, apricot, strawberry, chocolate,  & coconut, and sells them for $1.50. We made a stop going and coming. They were still warm as she makes them all day. We ate a whole pie in her driveway. I marked her address with my gps unit in my car so we could find her again. On our way to return two days later, we speculated how many pies she had sold. We asked her. She didn’t quite know since she had been making them for 3 days but knew she had sold 200 the day before. We were blown away. The pie lady makes lots of people happy along 127. She is located between Dunlap and Pikeville.

This is the view across the road from the fried pie lady. 

We stopped at places we had been the year before and sought out our favorite vendors. Some were there and some were not. We found new favorites as well.

We looked for last year’s awesome Barn Loft Sale but they didn’t have it. We found this one instead. It didn’t have anything great but an awesome view. 

Beaver skull. It was a first for me.  

Meet the shoppers.

They are more interesting than the junk your buying but who has time to people watch!!

A few caught my eye, though.

But none like Stanley from West Virginia. I got behind his Jeep several times during the day and the last time I decided I must get a picture of his creative packing, but before I had a  wreck chasing him down he pulled over at the next settlement. I parked right behind him and introduced myself.

I mean really, who bungee cords down a mantel clock on the back of a jeep anyway?! He was a great sport!

I took pictures of creepy dolls and text them to my boys.

Meet the sellers.

They love what they do. They are interesting, kind, funny, a wealth of knowledge and genuine. (generally speaking of course)

There is the man from Louisiana, who told me how to cut down a hornet’s nest without getting stung, the sign man I bought my Wisconsin Road sign from, the sweet lady with a cross necklace on that my Deddy admired. She said her favorite thing about the cross is that Jesus is off of it. I won’t ever look at a cross necklace the same. 

Another bottle man who also collects bugs at night to show the customers. He had been looking for a snake too but hadn’t found one. So far he had a scorpion and two Hercules beetles. A male and female. 

The label man had marvelous labels. He put them on new cans for display. We discussed at length about the beautiful labels. 

This is Steve. He lives in Michigan. He is a street minister. He drives all the way to Pall Mall, TN and sets up. When we left his tent it was with words that we would be praying for his mission work.

This is our purple bottle guy on Signal Mountain. He digs up his bottles out of the earth. I gave him a peach pie from the fried pie lady. He is one of my favorites.

Well if you are still reading then you should consider going on the World’s Longest Yardsale yourself!!

I will share my finds next. I have yet to go through them again. After the first day Deddy and I tried to write down what we bought and paid for it. We did okay. We didn’t even try the second day. By the third day, I didn’t want to count how much money I had left. I was afraid!

Thanks for reading.

Katey

The World’s Longest Yardsale is the first weekend in August every year and follows HWY 127. It goes from Michigan to Alabama. You can google for their website to get more info.