Each year I look forward to my old neighborhood’s annual garage sale day just as much as I did when I was a kid, and each year it seems like fewer houses participate. This year may have been an all-time low. Thanks to 24 hours of solid rain, when Susan and I drove through Sun Valley in search of deals we only saw two houses with their garage doors open. In its heyday, I’ll bet there were years where there were at least 50 garage sales.

Of course the garage sales are only half the reason I like to go. The other half is because I like to see old friends and neighbors — although that’s becoming more rare each year as well. The days of knowing who lives in a house there are almost gone. Most of the houses have changed hands at least once since I moved out, and many of them have changed hands two or three times since then.

Even though I didn’t get my dose of neighborhood nostalgia, over the weekend I did get my garage sale fix. Surrey Hills, the neighborhood directly next to ours, had their own neighborhood garage sale. Unlike the previous weekend which was cold and rainy, the sun was out and it was in the high-70s all weekend. Perfect garage sale weather.

I’m a sucker for anything Star Wars and other vintage things from the 70s and 80s, so this picture should not be entirely surprising. The Chewbacca mask and the Darth Vader doll were both a dollar. The four jigsaw puzzles on the right were fifty cents apiece. I paid $5 combined for those two Star Wars Micro Machines sets, but they were brand new. The host of that particular garage sale appeared to be one of those rabid couponers. The entire driveway was filled with random items, all new and unopened in their original packaging, at rock bottom prices.

I paid $3 for that Sony Walkman, which came with its original paperwork. That Pioneer tuner, which was only a dollar, is set to replace one out in the garage that died a while back. I couldn’t remember if I already had all three Lords of the Rings movies on DVD, but they were all 2-DVD Special Edition Widescreen editions, so for a buck each I decided to take a chance. I paid a buck each for those hardback books the weekend before at a book sale, but they were still downstairs so I threw them on top of the pile while taking pictures.

Hopefully next year the weather will cooperate and we’ll have a better turnout for the Sun Valley Garage Sale Day. As for this year, garage sale season has officially begun. Happy hoarding!