There's Yard Sale on Antarctica Street!!

Aunt Lois two years ago.

Most people wouldn't travel over 1,000 miles just to go to yard sales. But I was visiting my Aunt and Uncle at the beginning of August and this is what they do on their Fridays and Saturdays in the Spring and Summer.

My aunt and uncle take the yard sale adventure very seriously. They like to be "Early Birds". So, on that Friday, we all got up at 5:00 a.m.

We piled into their Cadillac and began our search for the perfect deal. Aunt Lois was in the back seat with Mom and I was in the front with Uncle Leon. Aunt Lois was armed with a map and a detailed itinerary for our morning.

The First Sale was in CDA on the outskirts of town by the golf course. Having a map should have made this first sale easy to find, but Aunt Lois had it in her mind that the street name was Antarctica instead of Atlantic.

We backtracked a couple times before my Aunt realized that it was Atlantic St instead of Antarctica. At this point, I was using my smart phone to find a map and driving directions

Two of the four people in the car were hard of hearing and it wasn't me or my mother. They had a state- of -the-art GPS System, but no one knew how to use it. At one point, Aunt Lois was yelling at Uncle Leon, you have gone too far, but in reality, we hadn't come far enough.

We finally found our first sale of the day and darn it!, we missed being "Early Birds, by 15 minutes.

My mother tried to make Aunt Lois adhere to a couple social rules about yard sale finds. For example, "I let you have those two yard frogs ornaments; but if you see something that I want, you have to give it to me, those are the rules" Aunt Lois wasn't about to be dictated to by her younger sister on her own turf; so Mom had to claim her own "bargains."

A homeowner at one sale, recognized a veteran bargain hunter and proceeded to charm Aunt Lois with flattering words. She was about to turn 80 the next day but he told her she could pass for 60 any time. Needless to say this helped out his sales considerably and it didn't hurt my Aunt Lois's feelings either.

By 11:30 a.m., we were done. The last stop was a home with as many books as the public library. They were thoughtfully arranged by genre and author so that shoppers could find their "bargains".

Aunt Lois was not deterred by the sheer number of selections that this sale offered. She had a folder with her favorite authors listed in alphabetical order. To avoid duplication, she also had copies of the introductions to each book that she had read.

On Saturday Morning, I opted to sleep in a little bit while they eagerly went out to find more "bargains.

My mother was under strict orders from my sister Bev to keep things small and simple. There had been long trips home with hardly a place to sit because Mom couldn't pass up a bargain or two. As it was, she ended up with a huge stuffed sheep dog that she couldn't resist; some books, picture frames and a couple nice pictures and a Goose Cookie Jar for her kitchen.

As for myself, I ended up having to buy a bigger suitcase to carry back all of my "finds". I was able to give each grandchild a "goodie" bag of treasures from Idaho.

The entire purpose for the visit was celebrating my Aunt Lois's 80th Birthday. Our adventures were not limited to yard sales. We also got pedicures.

It was our understanding that an appointment had been made for just two of us with an establishment in Post Falls. They didn't have an opening for three women, so Mom opted to not have one so that Aunt Lois could get her first pedicure for her birthday.

Unfortunately, a few crucial details got a little mixed up and we were on the wrong side of the street from where our appointment was scheduled.

At noon, we trooped into a nail salon, and Mom announced that we had appointments. The girl there looked a little puzzled, but told us to take a seat. We only had to wait a couple minutes before she invited us back to choose our nail color. Still thinking that we only had two appointments, we were happy to discover that she could accommodate all of us at once. It seemed a little strange, but we decided it was our lucky day.

We were enjoying a nice soothing foot soak and a lovely massage from the comfortable chair when Aunt Lois's cell phone rang, it was Carmen, Lois's daughter-in-law, "The spa just called, Where are you?

Apparently, we were at the wrong place. Aunt Lois told Carmen, "It is too late now, we already have our feet in the water!"

So Aunt Lois is the proud owner of lime green toenails, mine are hot pink and Mom has a wonderful shade of burgundy.

Happy Sigh! It is the scenic route in life that always makes the best memories to look back upon. I love my aunt and uncle dearly and I am sure that they could out yard-sale me any day of the week. I wonder what they would think about the city-wide sales that we have here in Missouri?