Did cowboys have yard sales?

Way back in January, I wrote about our trip to the Memphis Film Festival, and how interesting it was that elderly TV cowboys still had groupies, young and old, who treat these aging “stars” like royalty.  One of Ella’s favorites, James Drury, also known as The Virginian, is a regular at this annual festival, and Ella was thrilled with the opportunity to meet, share a few words, and have a picture taken with her western hero.

Flash forward to now, and The Virginian is headlining Georgia’s Official Day of the Cowboy on Saturday at The Rock Ranch, an “agritainment” cattle ranch about 45 miles away.  From the website:

This year's special guest will be none other than James Drury from the 1960's T.V. western series, "The Virginian".

Guests will enjoy shows by cowboy stunt performers who will rob the train and engage in gun fights. There will be mounted drill teams, quick draw demonstrations, a trick horse, a large model train display and live country music. Guests will enjoy vendors selling western wear, watch an action packed wild west show with shooting and knife throwing and a Hop-A-Long Cassidy look alike.

Of course, Ella, to use a horse metaphor, is chomping at the bit to attend the all-day event.  Unfortunately, the ranch will not release a schedule of events in advance, which means, theoretically, we’d have to show up at 10 a.m. to see every thrilling moment of this western extravaganza.

Normally, I’d just bite the bullet and show up early and stay late.  But, and you’d knew there had to be a “but,” tomorrow is turning out to be the biggest thrifting day of the Fall season, which multitudes of church and school sales, as well as a host of estate and garage sales dotting the middle Georgia map.  Since I missed an annual book sale two weeks ago while at Disney, I feel compelled to take advantage of every remaining thrifting opportunity before it gets too cold; after all, the Christmas shopping season is literally right around the corner, and you can never have too much inventory.

I think Ella realizes this, since she already has started printing out yard sale listings from Craigslist for Saturday morning, and, realistically, we will have several solid thrifting hours before we have to head toward the ranch.  However, there won’t be enough left of me to snore if I make Ella miss anything exciting.

Have a productive weekend everyone.