Canton- June, 2010

I've written about Canton before and for the uninitiated, it is a mega shopping experience. Half craft fair and half garage sale/flea market, with food thrown in for good measure. The reasons we decided to go in June, were three-fold. First, my Bwd church group had originally planned a group trip and I thought I'd join them. Sadly that trip had to be rescheduled. Second, I wanted to replace some outside decorations that were on our new house when we bought it, but when we moved in, were missing. And thirdly, Nki wanted to go as an end of school "get away".
We were a little later than planned getting away from Arlington, cuz Nki decided to bring L with us and packing baby stuff for an extended shopping trip takes some time. We are several hours closer to Canton here than folks in Bwd, so we expected to be there in about 90 minutes. Then we came up on this wreck that was being cleaned up and the traffic SLOOOOOOOWED DOOOOWN, so we just sat and waited and inched and waited and inched. We finally got there, found a good parking place, got Lil into her stroller, packed all our necessities (sun block, hats, bottles of water, diaper bag, etc) and headed out. My decorative items were in the first pavillion we entered, but I waited til we were ready to leave, not wanting the haul these large items all morning. I also wanted a specific hummingbird feeder which I found, but again waited to buy. N found several gift items she was looking for an we walked and browsed and entertained Lily with crackers and milk. She was so happy and excited to see (and be seen) that i would not hesitate to take her again, but it helps to have 2 pairs of hands to see about her. We looked, and looked and stared at people and enjoyed the crowd. And it was crowded. I didn't see as many folks this time, with their dogs in tow, or in baby type pouches on their bodies. People were buying, so I suppose the economy is okay. We saw furniture, food prep. items, lots of baby items--bedding, toys clothing--, so much bling and glitz on clothing, that I wonder about the people who buy and wear the items. We saw personal services such as massages (obviously not full, but shoulder, feet, hands) We saw accupuncture services, and there were ladies who were matching hairpieces to a person's existing hair
We had lunch in a nice food court type area, and no we didn't have the giant turkey legs, but more sensible food. Nki had pasta and salad and I had a baked potato with chili on it. Lil had applesauce and crackers that we brought and pasta and potato from our plates. We planned ice cream for later and were a little disappointed in the ice cream that we chose. It was soft serve, but hardly ice cream. It lacked on texture, and taste--was more like grainy milk flavored ice crystals. not very sweet, and definitely not creamy tasting or feeling. That was our only disappointment for the day.
We decided we'd all had enough, so we bought my items (large, but not heavy) and headed out.
These are the outside decorations I purchased. Thanks, N for installing them.




Lil slept most of the way back to Arlington and the exciting day of shopping in Canton was over.
I'll get back to more about the move in a day or so. I think I'll talk about driving and finding where we want to go.