First stop - gas station, of course
um.....ouch.......... $4.08......... cah-raaaaayyyy-zyyyyyy
But what a suh-weeeet ride!!!
Next stop - Byron Center Farmer's Market! The trip didn't take as long as I thought it would but time flies when 2 like minded friends get to talk un-interrupted! I think the conversation went something like this - "CRAFTS! blahblahblah HERBS! so on and so on MARKETING! yaddayadda RETIREMENT! and and and MEN!!! lalalalala DO I TURN HERE???? ahhhh!!heehee
So, we got to Byron Center and we could SEE the Farmer's Market but it took us a few seconds to figure out how to get in there. We almost took a visit to the bank instead of the market. heehee (again -- there was lots of 'heehee')
Although it was smaller than I thought, it wasn't too bad. I thought about getting closeup pictures of the different booths but I got wierded out. Maybe next time. But I did get some shots
We think we counted somewhere between 20 and 25 vendors. It looks pretty nice but smaller than I thought it would be - that's not necessarily a bad thing because there was a pretty good selection of everything. The first booth we went past was chinese food! Great idea but it was 9 in the morning!! I love crab rangoon and all but.......
The veggies and plants were beeeeee-uteee-ful! There was a great variety of the standards but the two things that stood out were the PILES of yummy looking asparagus and gorrrrrgeous t'maters that had been grown in a green house.
My friend stopped and kept going "mmmmmmmm" at the home made bread booth and bought a lovely braided bread to have with her spaghetti supper. I was in the booth right next to her eying the baskets of cheese that were just whispering - "I'd be greeeeat with craaaackerrrrrrrs..." and there were SAMPLES!!! I splurged on a hunk of onion garlic goodness. I don't know if I'm gonna share with my family......
There was a guy with bags of coffee beans and carafes of coffee.......clever guy. We also sampled "Nadine's Dip mixes" and I couldn't decide between the onion dip and the veggie dip! It's a good thing it's sold at the Walgreens right there in town! I might hafta wander that way again.
So, now, it's thinking time. Do we rent an area?? I will say that quite a few people were milling around while we were there, especially for being just 9 in the morning and it had just rained for a few hours. Well, I have the contact information of the right person so I'll hold on to that and sleep on it a bit.
And so ended our first leg of the trip. I'll have to continue in another post with leg two because I was silly and left my camera in the locked truck!! We took a trek to Portland (which once again didn't seem too long "MOD PODGE! blahblahblah PAINT PENS! yaddayadda MOTOR HOMES! on and on and on) and found our destination - Rafaelle's Marketplace. It was an interesting trip and we chatted with the owner for a while then he told me he'd be sending me some pictures of his place! So, I'm going to wait until I get the pics from him then I'll be posting part two! In the meantime, you could look at their website if you'd like - http://raffaelesmarketplace.com
Until then - happy crafting!
