Flea Market

As we got up this morning, the wind was blowing the awning fairly heavily. It was rocking the whole trailer, but then it is a lot like a sail in the wind.

After some breakfast, I went out to deal with the awning. It is murphy's law that the awning can never fold up quickly, when there is a wind out. And yes it did fight me as I folded it up. It had been down for about three days, and the side slides had taken a set in the out position. This happens from the anti flap devices, that stretch the center of the awning. They put tension on the bars that hold the roller away from the trailer.

These bars are not designed to have sideways tension on them, and it upsets the telescoping nature of the bars, which is necessary when you fold the thing up. I got it, but it took longer than it should have.

Mid morning, Loyce made mention that the neighbor had said, that there was a large flea market here in Mesa. So I thought a while, and remembered that Sandra of Nightly News had mentioned going to it last winter. So I went to her blog and scanned thru the entries. Yup, Jan 4th and again on the 11th. Took me a while to find it but she had the website linked as well.

Mesa Swap Meet

That gave us all the necessary info to go to the meet. After some battling with the Doctors back in KC to get a prescription renewed for Loyce, we set out.

This is the biggest swap meet I've ever seen. It is metal Morton style buildings, built in a row. But it is a quarter mile long. You cannot see to the other end when you enter. There are booths on both sides. They kept referring to A106 and then C200 and D95 and so forth on the PA system. That is when I realized that there were four rows of buildings that paralleled each other with about 250 booths in each one. Somewhere around 1,000 or so spots. Of course the larger stores had many spots that made up their store. But still, if you want to see the whole thing, you are going to have to shop a mile of stores on both sides of the aisle. Holly Cow!

I lost Loyce right off the bat, as she went to find a bathroom. But we both knew where the car was so I set out to see the stores. I made it all the way down A aisle, and back up B. That was a half mile of shopping. I had purchased some little tools at one stand and a new phone charger cable at another. And a cheap replacement billfold with a card insert, from a kiosk in the middle of the aisle, in the South end of Row A.

I started back towards aisle C. But then I thought better of it and went to sit in the car. I waited for her about a half an hour, re arranging my cards and stuff into the new billfold. Then I set out to go look for her. I had no more than walked into aisle A from a side entrance, and there she was in the middle of the aisle. She saw me, and made her presence known.

I was determined to go to C aisle to see a computer store, but she was tired. We bought a T shirt for her and went to the car.

Driving around to the far end in front of the C doorway, I hopped out and took the shortest route to the computer display. They had used corporate pull computers, mostly for $99. I have enough used old computers now, so that turned out not to be worth my while.

After we came back to Mesa Spirit, we decided to go get some Mexican food. Garcia's is a popular restaurant here in Phoenix, and there is one about a mile East of here. We went and had combination dinners. We had the same thing, Sour Cream Chicken Enchalada, and Shredded Beef Burrito. Way too much with the ton of chips we ate before the dinner plate came. And I had to ask for the muy picante salsa too. That required about a gallon of water, but I enjoyed every minute of it.

Back at the rig, I am now into the Cabernet Charles Shaw, from Trader Joe's. Since it is now beginning to get late, that will have me to sleep directly. Lol

Yah, Charles Shaw is also known as two buck chuck. That's because they sell it for $2 in California. But here in Arizona, we do not get the tax break on California wines that they do, so it is $2.99 here. It seems quite smooth for such an inexpensive wine. Notice I did not say cheap, lol.

That was today, I wonder how tomorrow will turn out. It will probably be sunny and 85 again. Don't ya just hate it when that happens?

Retired Rod