BRUNSWICK, GA. | One mans trash is another mans treasure, the saying goes, and on the annual Peaches to the Beaches yard sale one mans rust is another mans patina.

The 200-mile yard sale that stretches from Barnesville to Brunswick got started Friday at stops at churches, in parking lots at businesses closed and running and a lot of front yards. It was the first time in years that there has been a stop so close to the beach because the Golden Isles Parkway Association Inc., which sponsors the annual March event, hadnt found an official sponsor there for years.

That changed this year when the Brunswick Downtown Development Authority sponsored a stop at Mary Ross Park on the waterfront.

Kay Lively was paying attention in Barnesville.

Lively said she and a couple of friends planned to do what they did last year, drive down to Jesup the night before and shop their way home. But after learning Jesup wouldnt be the end of the official road, they came on to Brunswick.

We learned a few years ago to go to the coast and work our way back, Lively said.

Lively said she likes to shop as far from home as possible because the bargains are different. With her in her Suburban were Mary Beth Burrell from back home and Connie Mercer from Alma. All three have eyes for different wares.

Im a sucker for old linens, said Lively while Mercer was looking for old dishes and Burrell runs an antique store.

They were pulling a rental trailer, that Lively said was getting full, and the Suburbans windows were painted saying among other things, Junkaholics on the road to recovery.

In the Sterling community, the Underwood family held their annual family reunion in conjunction with the yards sale. Lisa Isenhower ladled cups full of boiled peanuts from a steaming pot as wieners and sausages smoked on a grill.

Rene Osborne came from Clemson, S.C., to help her mother, Cheryl Dill, fill up a big rental van to stock Dills Treasure Seekers thrift store in Jonesboro, Ga.

We do it every year, Dill said. We shop this trail to carry back to the store.

Osborne tried out a hammock on the side of the road as cars whizzed past, but she didnt buy it.

Marvin Fowler was set up in Sterling for the second year with tables filled with old tools including wood planes, chisels, hand drills and bits.

Fowler said he drives his big motor home up from Florida to visit grandchildren near Jacksonville and then comes up to Georgia for the sale.

With the bad fuel mileage on his motor home, he has to make a few sales to help pay for gas, Fowler joked. We just have fun doing it, he said. Me and my wife like rambling and meeting people.

The trade goes back to his childhood.

My daddy had a used furniture store when I was a teenager, Fowler said.

A lot of the items have seen far better days, but Fowler said, You dont ever know what somebody wants.

In Brunswick, Penny Smith was selling bluebird houses and local honey he collects from his bees just north of Brunswick.

A rain shower came through and hurt business some, but Smith said he had sold enough honey to recover the rent and a little more before 9 a.m.

A few booths away, John Miles of Alma was decked out in a University of Georgia shirt and cap selling fried pecans made from an old family recipe that he sells as Popi &Mimis Pecans.

Bea and Don Skeens bought some, and Don Skeens, a University of Florida grad, asked, What if I was wearing my Florida cap?

Im here to sell pecans, Miles said. I dont care what you wear.

Terry Dickson: (912) 264-0405

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Peaches to the Beaches Yard Sale hits high gear along US 341 - Florida Times-Union