I just got back from two days at the worlds longest yard sale and had a great time this year. But I must be getting old since I only made it 40 miles instead of 300 miles over the two days. I only made it 17 miles the first day so instead of spending 4 1/2 hours driving to Hollywood casino in Southern IN I just went home and started over today. I took it easy both days and we had the best weather in 20 years of doing this. Wednesday the weather was actually icky but anything beats 95 degrees and 100% humidity. It was misting most of the morning and actually cold so quite a few of the dealers didn't show up. Of course that also meant that a lot of the buyers stayed home so less competition.

The first thing I "learned" is that before you leave an area use the port-a-potty. It was about 7:30 in the morning and this area that had a large number of dealers but only two or three were open. As I was walking back to the car I decided maybe I better visit the bathroom before I left. I had my "I buy casino chips" tee shirt on and as I was leaving this guy came up to me with a large pile of cancelled chips. He is the same guy I bought chips from two years ago and I had been looking for him. The ones I got yesterday were the highest priced ones from last time that fortunately he discounted significantly.

The second thing I learned is maybe it is better to overpay for an item instead of "thinking about it". A lady saw my shirt and said she had two chips. She got them and one was an older Carnival Cruise token and the other was a $1 Golden Gate SMCRWN chip. She wanted $10 for the pair. I had no idea what the value of the Golden Gate chip was but I figure a token is lucky to be worth a buck and $9 is a lot for most $1 chips. I told her I would think about it for a few minutes (just long enough to check out the chip with the TCR in the trunk!). The TCR's I keep in the trunk are old ones and it said the chip was an "R" rated chip (my new TCR has it as an M chip). So I went back a few minutes later and she was also checking the chip out on ebay. Sadly there was one on Ebay for $50. She sold it to me for $25 so I didn't so too bad (I didn't get the token).

I also got the usual crap that I buy on these trips - a pair of dice from Harrahs N KC, two punchbords, an El Capitan ashtray, a set of Grand Casino bronze tokens, $10 and $25 Casino Miami chips, the usual supply of silver items and one gold ring, some glow sticks for the grandkids, a bag of Starbucks coffee, a birdfeeder and a couple of cans of SPF 50 suntan lotion.

I had a good time, it wasn't hot for once, and I just took it a little easier this year than normal so I didn't get my usual "stress test" out of the trip.