Should I.......Shouldn't I..........

Well, the road trip is finished! My friend and I thought we'd go scope out a couple of crafty venture possibilities and now we have even MORE things to think about! As if we don't have ENOUGH going on in our purty little heads!!! sheesh.

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!