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Daytona Flea Market

The final portion of the weekend trip was to include a trip to the Daytona flea market, which is huge by most standards.

Funny how a well known flea market like the Daytona flea market doesn't have an address. Well yes, there is, 2987 Bellevue Ave., is given on the web site, but if you program that into your GPS it says ‘no such address.’

I put the nearest address suggested by they GPS into it, and it took me to a street behind the Daytona airport. That was handy because I was about to fly off the handle, and having a runway handy might make that chore a little easier.

Pretty difficult to use a GPS to find it when you don't have an address to insert. I've been doing that a lot lately. Driving to a place with no name, no street address, no anything other than knowing it exists – somewhere.

Well we managed to find it. It's the place where all the traffic in the left hand lane is going and we are in the centre lane. Not to worry, straight through the intersection, make the mandatory U-turn that gives us the right of way once we get back to the intersection anyway.

They advertise thousands of full time booths, and the race events these weeks bring additional displays from the NASCAR crowds. Many of the vendor trucks are set up here as well as the Daytona track. You can imagine if they have thousands of vendors, there are just as many cars and customers.

Florida has had torrents of rain lately and the field type parking lot has more than its share of mud spots. Once again the SUV has its merits for we turn in to the lanes only a short distance from the first buildings of displays. What looked like empty parking spots turned out to be mud holes where cars had been almost stuck, with spinning wheels leaving deep ruts. Not to worry, just back into one of those spots and keep the drive wheels on good ground. Works for me.

You recall we walked many miles the day and night before while attending Daytona International Speedway. The flea market is mostly indoors, with miles and miles of walking possible in all directions. People are shoulder to shoulder with not an inch of space to spare.

It wasn’t too long before wobbly knees began to complain, and the question of whether they and their connecting parts would keep the rest off the ground became questionable. So with only a couple items in hand we retreated to the parking lot, hopes let down a little, but knowing for sure further walking today was not an option.

Waiting for another parking lot story? Ah ha – this time I know where Big Blue is. I will never do that routine again.

Off To The Villages

Next it is off to The Villages to visit some Nova Scotians that we know are in the area. Are you ready for it? We don’t have the address. We know the area, a street that sounds like golf…or is it gulf… and it is in a secure protected area. This is several hours drive from Daytona, so off we go into the wild blue yonder.

Some hours later we get near the area of our destination. I am near the the point of desperation, almost dying of thirst when I hear my navigator say, “There it is right there, through that gate on the left.” “But I need a drink.” I protest.

Left turn, and we end up at a gate with the gate keeper staring out the window. “Yes,” he says, “How can I help you?” We are here to visit Mr. & Mrs X,” she says. “Do they know you are coming? They are supposed to call the gate and let me know you are coming.” Says the gentleman. “They didn’t know we are coming.” She says. “They are supposed to let me know.” Says the gate guy. “But they didn’t know,” she says, “We just decided to come today.”

“They are supposed to get on the phone, and let me know the names of anyone coming to visit.” He continues, “Or I can’t let you in.” “I can put it in reverse and back the h#%% out of here” I suggest. With that he decides to open the gate and let us in. “You tell them they are supposed to call me and let me know when they are having visitors,” I hear as we drive by. “Stop on you way out and let me ….”

After checking a few streets and intersections for the no name street, I spy a vending machine. My navigator hops out and says, “I think its this street, I’ll check.” It only has two houses on it, but I am fixed on the pop machine as I drive to the nearest parking spot in front of it.

As I sit in the drivers seat gulping down half a can of wonderful liquid to cure the worst thirst I’ve had in ages my attention goes to the rear view mirror. There she is waving her arms on the street behind me. “This is it, this is it, I told you we would find it,” she is telling me.

“Ahhhhh,” I say aloud as I take another swig of the thirst curing canned sugar laden cold gold. “Another successful mission.”

We had a nice visit with some nice people. Then we headed out to the next stop about a half hour down the highway. And no I didn’t stop on the way out the gate.

Tomorrow: Back to PCB

-=One Day At A Time=-

This work by NSCAVE is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License