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Interested in a kitchen sink or a dirt track stock car? Both could be up for grabs again at the Dixie Highway 90-mile yard sale.

The annual event, from sun-up to dark today through Sunday, covers five counties and 13 communities from Marietta to Ringgold. In Cobb, the road follows U.S. 41 and Ga. 293. The highway was once part of a popular tourist route from Michigan to Florida.

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Andy Sharp/AJC (ENLARGE)
Shoppers check out deals in downtown Emerson, Ga., during the event in 2006.
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Regina Wheeler, who works with the sale, said the sink and car were among the more interesting items selling a year ago. She also mentioned a traffic-stopping 6-foot-tall flip-flop that advertised hand-made flip-flops for sale.

The event promises more than 1,000 sales and a mix of antiques, collectibles, chenille bedspreads and vintage bric-a-brac along a route that heads northwest from Marietta through Kennesaw, Acworth, Emerson, Cartersville, Cassville, Adairsville, Calhoun, Resaca, Dalton, Rocky Face, Tunnel Hill and Ringgold. I-75 roughly straddles the route.

Joe Bennett, with the Kenworth Golden K Kiwanis Club, came up with the idea of a sale to promote tourism on the highway. The club had two yard sales before the Dixie Highway Association made it a larger event in 2005.

Abbie Parks, who co-wrote a book about the road, "Images of Georgia: North Georgia's Dixie Highway," said the sale brings the Dixie Highway full circle.

"The current-day fast-food and motel business started on this highway," Parks said. "The sale brings people back and gives them a sense of the past."