Saturday In A Small Town

They say when in Rome, do as the Romans do, and I guess it works that way in small towns too. So yesterday we joined half of Wilmington and went to the Caesar Creek Flea Market, which is only a couple of miles away from the Thousand Trails campground. The venue bills itself as Ohio’s largest year-around indoor/outdoor flea market and it certainly was large enough to merit the title.

We enjoy wandering around flea markets and swap meets, and as flea markets go this one was somewhere between the excellent Webster Flea Market in Florida and the disappointing Shipshewana Flea Market in Indiana. There were some outside vendors offering trash and treasures, and indoor vendors offering all kinds of Avon decanters, cheap tools made in China, and other imported junk. But there were also vendors inside selling used merchandise like books, fishing equipment, and even firearms, though every gun I looked at was way overpriced.

There was also a huge Lego exhibit with very elaborate displays made from the small plastic toy blocks. Can you believe all of this stuff was made from Legos?

It took us about three hours to make our way through the entire place, and by then we were all hungry, so we drove into town and had dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant called El Dorado. It had a good rating on Yelp, which turned out to be well deserved. It definitely deserves to be included in our Favorite Restaurants guidebook.

Included in The 100 Best Small Towns in America, Wilmington, Ohio is a nice small town of about 13,000 people and we have yet to meet one that has not been friendly. Maybe because many of the early settlers in this region were members of the Society of Friends, better known as the Quakers. The folks here claim that the first banana split was created right here at Hazard’s Drug Store in 1907. Well that was certainly friendly of them!

We like driving around the streets near downtown admiring the handsome architecture. There are some beautiful old homes here.

Several of the downtown businesses have colorful murals painted on them.

Back at the campground, we spent the evening watching movies on TV and I did some more writing. There are a lot of weekend campers here, and as we were driving in I saw one fellow dousing himself with what looked like at least half a can of mosquito spray. I don’t like those nasty little critters either, but how healthy can saturating yourself with that much poison be?

A few years ago we discovered the Off! Clip-Ons and they have really worked well for us. We just turn them on and clip them to our belts, or if we’re sitting outside we put them on the arms of our Strongback chairs and we’re not bothered by skeeters!

If you’re looking for something to read today, how about the story of a Romany Princess who must choose between her people and the myth of love at first sight? Check out Not Juliet, part of Ella Medler’s Addicted To Love romance collection.

And if southern California is in your travel itinerary, my friend Randy Morris has a new book out; Traveling the U.S.: San Diego, with lots of photographs that I think you’ll find handy in planning your trip.

We’re supposed to have a lot of thunderstorms today, so we’re going to stay home and I’ll get some more writing done. I’m eager to find out how this latest Big Lake mystery winds up.

Thought For The Day – You don’t see faith healers working their miracles in hospitals for the same reason you don’t see psychics winning the lottery.

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