The First Trip 1993 – Day Thirteen – Florida Flea Market – 22nd September 1993

[Laner]

Today was an easy day as we had a late night so we went for breakfast at Wendy’s and then decided to go to the Florida Flea Market, which again was something we had seen in the Lonely Planet Guide and on various brochure type books that you picked up that were full on discount tickets. We eventually found the market and it turned out to be hundreds of market stalls laid out on an abandoned car park somewhere west of the I4. It was a cross between a market stall environment that you might see in some town centres and a car boot sale.

It was a strange mixture of tee-shirts and clothes, pots and pans and sports goods. Both my friend and I were keen golfers and we came across a stall that sold golf clubs. Brand new top brand clubs at really low prices so there was the potential for them to be fake. We were umming and ahhing about whether to buy the clubs when the guy who owned the stall told us to buy them, go to the range with them, come back and he would give us a receipt for used clubs and that way we wouldn’t pay import duty when we got back to the UK. It was tempting, but in the end, neither of us bought any and we weren’t sure of his claims either. I remember we bought a few things and then headed to a Nike store outlet we had seem on the 192.

We all bought new trainers and headed back to the hotel for a quick swim, got changed and headed up to the I4 where we ate at TGI Fridays. Food was great and we headed back to the hotel with a full stomach.