Long Yard Sale

I try to stay up to speed on interesting events in Michigan, but this one eluded me.  Today I learned of the Highway 127 Corridor Sale, aka the 127 Yard Sale, which claims to be "The World's Longest Yard Sale."  It takes place in August, beginning at Hudson, Michigan, and extending south along US-127 to Northwestern Georgia and Northeastern Alabama.  That's a lot of yard sales!

This seems to have started as a way of demonstrating that our old traffic routes (remember fabled Route 66?) have something to offer that interstate highways cannot.  A yard sale is certainly an activity that the gods of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System would not smile upon.  You can do many things on an interstate, but stopping to shop for an old tea pot is not one of them!

This 4-day event, starting the first Thursday in August, originated in 1987 with a county executive in Tennessee.  Originally it followed the route of US-127 from Covington, KY, to Chattanooga.  Then Lookout Mountain Parkway was added, extending the route into Georgia and Alabama.  In 2007, like an invasive species, the route crept north into Ohio as far as the Michigan border.  Since then it has slithered into Michigan as far as Hudson.  It will probably continue to grow, but not beyond Grayling, Michigan, where US-127 terminates at I-75.

I am always amazed at the creativity of our people, for whom selling things seems to be an irresistible challenge! •••