Florida Flea Market

The Market Entrance

I always used to enjoy the Sunday Flea Markets in Dartmouth. Every Sunday the hallways in the local shopping mall would fill with tables full of interesting things for sale cheap. Used books, old vinyl records LPs (Remember them, pre cassettes, pre CDs, pre MP3s, pre streaming music . . . ), used clothes, well, actually you could get pretty well everything there. Now along came Sunday shopping and away went the Flea Markets. I think they still do them somewhere locally, but I stopped going when they moved away from the neighborhood.

Need Some Tools

I discovered that they do the Flea Market thing here in Florida very BIG time. We drove to the Webster’s Westside Flea Market outside of Lakeland Fl. Now I am told that since it is officially “off season” now that the thousands of snowbirds have started heading back up the frozen north, the market is considerably downsized from its normal size, but it was still massive. Webster, the town that hosts the Market is a small town, and during its busy time, the market pretty much overwhelms the town on market day, and it is not unusual to run into huge traffic jams getting to the acres of parking outside the market area. When we went it was not busy, or crowded, and judging from the amount of empty tables, many vendors do not bother showing up unless it is crowded, but there was still an amazing assortment of things to buy.

Do you need a handgun, shotgun, or parts for your arsenal, not a problem, is your tool chest looking slightly sparse, it was available, of course T-Shirts were readily available at rock bottom prices, how about hubcaps for your model A, or license plates to match your vintage ride, old coins, jewelry, electronics, fresh produce, all available. Lots of food venders with delicious items, and of course lots of antiques. In short, although lots of venders were absent, there was still plenty to look at and purchase, and in most cases, the lack of serious crowds, made everyone willing to seriously haggle over price. Although we spent hours wandering around, I know that we did not see everything; every time you came to the end of a section, there seemed to be another building or open air area of tables just over there . . .

Where Did Everyone Go?

I did manage to find a few items to purchase, some unique playing cards with unique jokers to add to my collection, a T-Shirt, and a few gifts. It turned out to be a very pleasant day in the heat of Florida. In fact, by the time we were ready to leave, our car was all alone in one area of the parking lot.