One of the famous Yellowstone deep hot springs
Crystal clear hot water spring
Pre July 2022 Posts
All of the posts we made before July 2022.
Bright yellow vintage tour bus
Spotted at a Yellowstone National Park vehicle parking lot.
A classic for sure!
A bleak, barren landscape at Yellowstone
The contrast from the dense green forest to the white hot springs is stark
At West Thumb of Yellowstone Lake
Fish in the hot spring
These small fish were enjoying the hot spring water at Yellowstone Lake, West Thumb
They like a hot bath
Pay attention to this sign
The signs at Yellowstone are there for a reason!
They mean it!
Evil eye crow
A big blackbird
This guy was giving me the evil eye near the Mukilteo Lighthouse.
The Route 127 yard sale
Our set up at the 127 yard sale
The Route 127 yard sale starts in Michigan and ends up in Alabama! This four
The site was lovely with trees and good roads.
day, 600 plus mile long event each August sees thousands of “yard sales” set up in the homes of ordinary folks, parking lots and just about anywhere you can find to set up a table or two or even a tarp on the ground. This event has become a huge tradition for thousands of bargain hunters and hopeful sellers as well.
We set up for the 127 at York Woods north of Greenville, Ohio. York Woods is the home of the Darke County Steam Tractor Association. The woods is really a nice camping area for the tractor events, and is perfect for the 127 yard sale. There were close to 100 vendors that set up in the woods, including several food concessions.
We set up here. It was the third event in as many weeks for us. This was a great sale for us. The cost was only $70 for seven nights of camping with water and electric and that included our vendor space rental.
What we sell at festivals
Necklaces displayed on a peg board and in packages on the table.
We help finance our full time RV lifestyle by selling at festivals, fairs, and sometimes
Single pegboard display and necklaces in white jewelry boxes
flea markets. The set-up costs including at least electric hook-ups give us not only very cheap camping but a chance to make some money by selling our wares.
What do we sell? The main product we sell are hand made glass necklaces. We got a great deal on 5000 units about a year and a half ago.( I won’t advertise our source here but contact me if you want details.) Necklaces like these have been around a while. Often our customers will comment that they have bought some at other places. This is fine, as we have a huge variety and they usually buy one or two more from us!
The price? We normally sell these for $5.00. At one large ten day festival we had two prices: $5 and $7 depending on the style. This two tiered pricing worked fairly well, though we have not used it at three or four day events.
We have also sold “cooling” neck and head bandannas with great success. You have to look for good wholesale pricing on these to be profitable. We also have had reasonable luck with cheap imported turquoise necklaces. Both these items we have found on Liquidation.com, an auction site where you can find about anything!
Another cheap camping festival
Our Hideout trailer on a level grassy area in back, sales canopy on the gravel path. We paid for 30′ of frontage.
The Annie Oakley Festival was over, and our next event was going to be two weeks away in the same location. Would we travel during that time frame or would we stay and camp at the site? I spoke with a fellow vendor who had a food concession trailer set up at the Annie Oakley Festival. He was going to another festival the following weekend that was very close. I got the phone number from him, called and got a spot reserved.
So off we went to the State Line Heritage Days in Union City Indiana and Ohio. Yes, the town was split by the state line! The great thing was that it was only 11 miles from our current location. Talk about saving on travel costs, this was ideal. We left on Monday and drove to Union City.
We had to drop the trailer a fair distance behind our canopy due to the ground level. This was not a real problem and there was plenty of room to park the truck. This place also had water in addition to 20AMP electric service. And the cost? Would you believe that the total cost for a 30′ space and seven nights of camping was only $60.00?
This was not a huge festival attendance wise, but we still sold a lot of our necklaces. With the low cost of the vendor space factored in this was a very profitable festival for us. We really enjoyed this festival and it is now on our calendar for next year.
Made some money at the Annie Oakley Festival
One EZ-UP display tent, the Hideout behind: we paid for one vendor spot.
Our first festival after we went full time in our RV was the Annie Oakley Festival
Showing the electric and water hook-ups. We could have set up another canopy behind the front one.
in Greenville Ohio. Planning on making some money, we had reserved a vendor spot at this event long before we knew when our house would sell. As it turned out, we closed on the sale of the house on a Tuesday and traveled right to the festival grounds that night! The festival ran Friday through Sunday.
The festival was held at the York Woods, home to an antique steam engine and tractor facility about 12 miles north of Greenville. We fit into one 20′ wide vendor spot because the depth allowed the trailer to be backed in with our canopy as the picture shows.
“Buffalo Bill Cody” put on quite a show and had a nice collection of artifacts on display.
We had a great time at this festival. The group running the show was terrific, and the folks who owned the property were also most accommodating.There were several live singing groups, bull whip demonstrations, and the Festival Queen was crowned due to her winning the shooting contest! There was even a fellow portraying Buffalo Bill at the festival.
Our sales were very good as our necklaces were well received. We only paid for booth rental and camping was a mere $10 a night. We will be going back next year, as this is one of our favorite festivals.
Roadtirement 