Peaches to Beaches

This past weekend was the annual Peaches to Beaches yard sale in middle Georgia.  This annual two-day yard sale covers more than 200 miles along Highway 341 from Barnesville and Culloden to Brunswick and the Golden Isles in Georgia.  For those who are geographically impaired, or just don’t give a good darn, that’s basically middle Georgia to the Atlantic ocean.

Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?

Unfortunately, at least for me, it didn’t live up to its hype. 

Since I live sort of right in the middle of the route, I had the opportunity to either go north or south on Saturday morning.  I chose south, since it actually was the longer leg of the amazing race for yard sale crap … uh … goods.

Of course, you don’t actually get 200 miles of yard sales.  Most of the sales are centered in the small towns through which Highway 341 runs.  Oh, sure, there were scattered sales along the side of the road, but it got extremely tedious stopping every so often for little more than a table with old clothes and puzzles with probable missing pieces. 

In the cities, though, there were more tables and more stuff. There were semi-good pickings at a few churches and civic organizations, but most of the bigger sales just didn’t separate me from my money.  Contemplating this as I walked around, it finally hit me what was wrong.

Dealers.  They were all dealers who brought trailers full of stuff, put up tents, and had display cases.  They were dealers who brought dollar store crap.  They were dealers who brought neat collectibles, and charged not so neat prices. 

Since it costs money to move that much merchandise from wherever it is from which they came, they were charging prices that exceeded what I call yard sale normal.  In short, Peaches to Beaches was essentially a 200-mile over-priced flea market.  It probably was good for the casual buyer, but terrible for me.

Of course, it didn’t help that I went on the second day of the sale, but it was the best I could do, given my day job.  I did hear one dealer say that Friday had the buyers, and Saturday had the browsers.

I didn’t make it to the ocean; I turned around about halfway, since I wasn’t “earning” enough to pay for the gas,  and worked the other side of the highway on the return trip.  More clothes and puzzles with missing pieces.

Oh, well, there’s always next year, but probably not for me.