The Highway 127 Yard Sale - dubbed the World's Longest Yard Sale - brought customers from near and far to check out the buys on Signal Mountain Friday.
All kinds of garage and yard sale signs greeted motorists as they passed through the cities of Signal Mountain and Walden, including store-bought golden yellow placards with "garage sale" printed in bold type or homemade affairs constructed of neon pink poster board and black magic marker. They adorned street signs, mailboxes and utility poles, tempting passersby to stop and look for special finds.
Even as the sun set and sellers called it a day, buyers still trickled into church parking lots, community centers, residential carports and shaded lawns to see if they could find something they could not do without. While making deals might have been on everyone's mind, a sampling of buyers and sellers said they did it because it felt good.
"You know, it's just a fun, fun time," Walden resident Jabus Braxton said. "We enjoy raising the money we make, but meeting people from all around is what makes it worthwhile."
Nearby, at least a dozen family members and friends talked and laughed as the day's last buyers pulled off the road to browse an assortment of bicycles, home electronics, paintings, furniture and more.
This marks the fifth year his family has joined friends to make some sales, Braxton said. While he sells housewares, two friends bring antiques and "hard-to-find items" to the sale. Another friend brings "items that have been discarded, recycled and given new life."
On Friday, people came from just about every state east of the Mississippi River and several west of it, Braxton said. On Thursday, the first day of the four-day event, he met shoppers who had come from California.
Linda Blaskowski of Texas stopped by Braxton's yard sale with her husband as they traveled to Michigan.
"We just decided to pick up part of this on our trip," she said, adding they had stopped by a couple of other yard sales earlier in the day.
They weren't looking for anything in particular, "just whatever," Blaskowski said and laughed. So far, she has only found "one little dish."
Sylvia Zdunek and Jacora Parker of Chattanooga had just gotten off work and joked about being "fashionably late" to the Highway 127 Yard Sale, as they made their way toward a book shelf and a table full of cameras and thin computer monitors.
Each said they had favorite things to collect, but kept their minds open, especially when it came to "old things."
"I'm all about the mugs," Parker said. "I love mugs."
For Zdunek, it's bikes, old cameras and copies of Life and Time magazines.
"I usually do find something, but it's usually not what I'm looking for," Zdunek said. "It's like, 'Hey, I didn't know I wanted this, but now I do.'"
For Braxton, the yard sale has entered the home stretch, with today marking the end for him, he said. He figured they sold about half of what they put out, with most of the sales happening on the first day of the event.
In the end, it's still more about the good times than the money, Braxton said.
"This is a recipe I came up with at church," Braxton said. "Combine friends, food, fellowship. Mix for 10 minutes to two hours or more. Makes enough for everyone."
Contact staff writer Paul Leach at 423-757-6481 or pleach@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @pleach_tfp.