Old Timey Florida A1A Sale

We call this part of Florida the part that time forgot and we LOVE it just for that reason. A1A is a pre-interstate coastal highway that runs parallel and next to the Atlantic ocean. It is reassuring to see icecream sherbert colored motels in sleepy beach towns that so fondly remind us of the long car trips we took to Florida as children. Add in a 72 mile highway yard sale and we could not resist!

 How cute was thisTown Hall right on the beach?

 This is the house next to our motel. No Disney attraction, just some fun folks with pirate statues everywhere. 

It doesn't get more casual than parrots painted on a lawyers office.

We can't resist whatever these corny wooden photo ops are called. Here's Laura in a "turtle" beside the road in a trailer park.

This was the Southernmost end of the sale so we stayed here overnight. Just in case the children think we're spending their inheritance on lush digs on our picking trips, check out the "smoking section" below. Each room in our motel had a plastic chair and ashtray outside for the convenience of the guests.

You know you're in Florida

when Donald Duck sits on a restaurant's mailbox.

Who knew there was a town actually called Marineland, Florida.

 How cool is this dolphin cement fencing?

Dawn! We are up before the sun to get to the good stuff. This next photo isn't dark - it wasn't daylight yet. Sleepy, but ready for the treasure hunt.

Off to an early start we followed A1A up to Ponta Vedra. Along the way we enjoyed seeing grapefruit trees growing in lots of yards.

Want to see the vintage booty?

A lovely set of Abe Lincoln bookends

An amazing stash of old patterns

The fish painting is an addition to Jeri's $1.00 or less original art gallery,

The Chinese Checker board may end up in Jeri's office and our friend and Doris Day fan Pammie will get the albums.

We found these in the box of Christmas ornaments. It's Florida, what else would you expect?

No, we didn't buy it...

These fabulous Shiny Brites came out of the box of Christmas ornaments we bought!

Look what we found for Jeri!

This is the toy refrigerator Jeri bought last summer on the Peachtree Sale. Check out the fruit we found in Florida and the teeny tiny Coke can!

A Rare Weekday Picking Trip!

The Picking Sisters are working girls, so usually picking during the week is

out of the question. We headed to Tybee Island for 2 crack of dawn sales.

 Tybee Island is our local beach - we live only 18 miles from the Atlantic Ocean.

Our early start was rewarded with 2 new treasures for our etsy site

and both have a smoking theme.

We loved this cool metal poster from 1980.  

It's hard to believe that smoking cigarettes was not only aceptable, but

that these cool ashtrays were made just for your card games.

They have a lovely salmon color ceramic base with a brass top.

Our New Favorite Find & Towns We Never Heard Of

It's hot. No, not just hot, but HOT! Too hot for much picking since you can't pick in the dark, so we made a quick trip in "our own backyard" - towns we had never explored or in some cases even heard of within an hour of home. Our venture into unknown picking territory rewarded us with our new favorite find - 

this large paint by number of a pair of cockatoos in a bright green frame!

So here we were off of the interstate and less than an hour from home in Savannah, GA. 

We went to Pembroke, Daisy, Claxton, Collins, Manassas, 
Bellville & Cobbtown. Claxton was the largest town we saw and we 
certainly knew it from Claxton Fruitcake fame. 

Here are a few fun shots of picking (way) off the beaten path.

How's this for multi-tasking? Mailbox, art, birdfeeder AND For Sale sign.

Art is in the eye of the beholder. Boots, 2 painted tree trunks and Voila! Half of a man...

We loved this sign and it's message.

This was a great place for lunch in Claxton with a very clever parking sign post.

The kind of shop that we dream about.

Two beds of artificial flowers. A solution to the drought?

The final haul:

Fabulous Cockatoo Paint By Number

1970 Better Homes Holiday Cookbook

Plastic Blender Cover

The Fred Astaire Dance Book

Balloon Inflato-Pump

Hostess Anne Plastic Placecard Holders

All in all, it was a good day for the picking sisters!

What We DID NOT Do in North Carolina

Jeri couldn't resist sharing her ice cream with this cute little bear.

Downtown Hendersonville is Bear Country!

The Picking Sisters went to Western North Carolina for a few days to the goat farm in Flat Rock, to see the Smoky Mountains, breathe cool air (in the 60's) and, of course, pick. OK, the goat farm is actually the cottages at Highland Lake where they have a few goats, geese and a stunning vegetable garden. The food everywhere we went was local or organic and yummy. Breathtaking views of the mountains, stunning waterfalls, great shopping, divine flowers blooming everywhere. But the picking? Not so much. 

The goats were glad to see us!

We called this goat Grandpa because of his long white beard.

Jeri herding goats.

This post is about we DIDN'T do. For example, we picked in Etowah, Hendersonville, Asheville, Lake Lure, Chimney Rock, Columbus, Flat Rock, Bat Cave (yes, it's a real place), Brevard, NC and Lexington, SC.  We just didn't find a lot of our kind of stuff.


 This is the entire haul!

Here are a few shots from Bat Cave. We LOVED the scarecrows!

What else did we NOT do? We went to Chimney Rock State Park, but didn't go up to Chimney Rock because the elevator was out of order. We went to the Pisgah Forest Equestrian Center, but didn't ride - no time. We went to Sliding Rock, but didn't slide down - no bathing suits. We went to the climbing wall in downtown Asheville, but didn't climb - too chicken. All on our list for next time (except for that climbing wall).

 Weren't we smart to climb down these rocks in flip-flops to put our feet in the stream?

We took these of ourselves - maybe we should have figured out the self-timer 

before we went away?

We loved this sign in an Asheville shop window.

These monkeys were just sitting on a coach in an Asheville yarn shop.

This place in Asheville is called the Tobacco Barn and it's huge. Here are some photos of the place, fun signs and a few grand things we did not buy. 

 

Here's the front of a Coke cooler hanging from the ceiling. Cool wall art, no?

One final stop at the US 1 Flea Market  in South Carolina on the way home. Aren't these the

 best stripper shoes ever?

We guess this sign is for the people who are wondering where they are?