March 5, 2007

I was wandering around Athens, Texas looking for a grocery store when I found a Save-A-Lot. Then I wanted a nice place to park while I made lunch so I typed "park" into the GPS and it led me to Purtis Creek State Park which is about 16 miles west of Athens. It turned out they had a campground there so I spent the night. I cooked out using a grocery store log and a small bag of briquets for my fire. I wrapped a sweet potato and some carrots and a hot dog in aluminum foil for dinner. Someone said orange food is good for you, the hot dog is in honor of junk food. I like a balanced diet.

As you can see the foil package didn't look too pretty after 45 minutes on the open fire.

But the food was wonderful and the weather was warm enough to eat at the picnic table and look at all the trees around the campsite. It made me think of the New England wooded campsites except this place had water and electricity at each site.

I don't know what kind of tree this is but it is a very crooked tree, there were several like this in the area.

My dogs saw to it that I was up in time to get these pictures of the sun rising over the lake near our campsite. I really enjoyed the time in the wilds before taking on a 4 day sale.

At the Canton, TX Trader Days (Texas' version of a flea market) I saw these yard ornament type structures made of windows. Some had broken pottery on them and chandeliers hanging inside. This one has 2 upside down 1/2 cups glued to the front corners.

This is one tough chicken. (made out of metal)

I met some really nice people at the Trader Days, there were 6000 spaces (12 x 20) but many vendors took up several spaces, and that's just one area. There were several areas run by different organizations. Needless to say I didn't see much of it except for what was right around me. The trick is to get a good location. Some vendors said they set up for a year before getting their good location so you can imagine why mine was not good. I didn't sell much.

I had fun people watching. It was in the 30's at night and barely got up to the low 60's during the day with a stiff wind of 20 to 30 MPH. That is cold. But I noticed several families where everyone but the teen ager was dressed warmly. The teen was in a short sleeve shirt and jeans trying to act like they were just fine. I think those parents were wise to let them do their thing and freeze as a result.

I had fun giving some items away to the young kids. I gave away some cloth dolls and some Mardi Gras beads. If you can't sell it - give it away.

Many buyers, and vendors as well, rent electric scooters to get around and I expected to see collisions before the week-end was over. Many people had trouble controlling their scooters. There were people pulling their dogs in wagons, or with dogs in strollers, and dogs in baby carriers hanging around their owners neck. There were even some dogs walking on their own 4 legs. I heard there was a whole section of animals including pot bellied pigs. It's probably a good thing I never got to that area.

I met a woman on Friday who said she would bring her trimmers on Sat. and give Silly a good haircut. As you can see she did a good job.

I'm now near Tyler, TX at a campground that has a beautiful fenced area to let dogs run around. But best of all this place has WIFI. The dog walk area has a bench for people and bags for the dogs "deposits". I will be here until Thursday a.m. doing laundry and recovering from Trader Days.

I plan to hit one more flea market/trader days this coming week-end and then start toward home. I hope to arrive around St. Patrick's Day. I hope my drive-way snow has melted by then.