Yard Sale Mania

This post is for those serious garage and yard salers. You are not a truly accomplished garage/yard sale person until you do a city wide sale. Let me tell you, it is an experience beyond description.
Of course everyone wants to get to each garage sale as early as possible so as not to miss any really great stuff they can't live without. However, when you are attempting to hit 40 to 50 of them in the space of a morning you just have to start somewhere and move as quickly as possible. In our small town, it is simply a matter of deciding where you want to start and drive from street to street. While there is a map to follow, you find that it is not accurate. There are those folks who, for whatever reason, have decided not to have their name or number put on the map and take the chance by just putting their "goodies" out, knowing that if you are driving down the street, and you will, that you will stop. Treasures abound for sure. We witnessed antique everything, the likes of which I have never seen in any one place at one time. People drive miles to come and try to find that perfect item. I believe you could have found just about anything your heart desired. This was the big sale of the year and is always well attended by hundreds.
Some people were very organized, having all of their items neatly arranged, catagorized and individually priced, and others, well let's say, it was a basic free for all, make me an offer, kind of deal. Most were somewhere in between, meaning it has a price but nothing is set in stone. A few places even were selling hot dogs, hamburgers and cold beverages. A lesson we learned here was that if you want to eat, don't wait too long. Every place we went to find that hot dog, was sold out by noon.
What great things did we find you ask? Well some great clothes and toys for the kids, canning jars for our produce efforts later this summer, a great little kitchen table for me, some cabinets for toys, Christmas village pieces, little bottles for a craft project, an antigue treadle sewing machine and a few other odd and ends.
By one o'clock we were exhausted and called it a day. We missed a few sales but I do believe we were able to visit the vast majority. So until next year our visits to yard sales will probably be limited to 10 or less at any one time. We have truly entered the realm of the serious garage sale junkies.