Flea Market Fun

When we first started coming up to The Poconos, we always made The Route 209 Flea Market a part of our trip. We loved the “eccentric quality”, the quirky people and the whole atmosphere it had! People watching was the best part for me!

It always became a staple of our weekends. Dad wasn’t a fan, so mom would pile us all into the car and we would take the 15 mile ride there. We would use our babysitting money to buy all sorts of stuff we really didn’t need but “just had to have”. You could get everything there! Tim and Chip liked the trading cards. Kathi and I just liked spending our own money!!

When Dave and I started dating I brought him there and he too developed a fondness for the uniqueness of it. We would always stop for a fresh squeezed limeade while we were there. There was nothing like the tart and sweet mix of that yummy drink! We have yet to find anything that compares! We still to this day talk about it.

About five years ago the flea market shut down, taking with it our weekends of cheap thrills! Every time we would pass by the big open space it once was, we would sigh and think back to the amount of time (and money), we spent there.

Last summer when we came up to the house we noticed a new flea market had opened even closer to the house. So of course, this weekend we knew that it would be a part of our weekend activities.

It is amazing what you can find at these flea markets! Dave’s favorite was “The Pickle Guy” who had barrels and barrels of every kind of flavor pickle you could imagine! We sampled and bought a few.

You can get some pretty unique things there! We saw a basket filled with machetes. There they were at the perfect hight for a five year old to just pull out of the basket to “play” with. Drew’s favorite was the “pink police package”, that included handcuffs, a taser, a whip and pepper spray, all in hot pink. Thank goodness for the naivety of an eleven year old!

DJ, who works at my dad’s store and knows the ridiculous price if cigarettes was amazed at the price of then in Pennsylvania because the price is nearly double at home.

I love finding all the copies and imitations of things. The big name purses- that aren’t quite “real” are always fun to spot. Today we saw a set of markers called, “Sharpei’s”, that looked a lot like the well known version we all know as, “Sharpies”.

I am always amazed at the things we can buy here that we can’t in NJ, (at least not in any place I shop). Fireworks, brass knuckles, sickles, knives, air rifles! I even saw bear spray!!

I did walk out with my “deal of the day” though. My mom used to collect Ana Lees. She loved them! To me they were just more knick knacks around the house. Today sitting on a table filled with someone else’s knick knacks (junk), was an Ana Lee of a duck. With the duck race on Monday, and a price of only $2, how could I not get it?? A message from mom?!? Maybe it’ll bring me luck this and one of our ducks will win a race…