Road Trip! Juniper and I stole away for 24 hours and visited Canton, Texas, home of the world’s largest flea market contained in one spot. I had been hearing about Canton for decades, and jumped at the chance to tag along on Juniper’s hunt for eclectic and reasonably priced home décor.

Canton goods display

 In the morning, we headed out on yet another pastoral route to Canton, puzzled that the world’s largest flea market appeared to be out in the middle of nowhere. Where were all the hotels? Restaurants? Juniper craned her head towards the windshield and around to her driver’s side window, then turned to look at me in shock. “WHERE do these people eat?” she demanded. “Well”, I  answered, “they most likely eat dinner in their kitchens. They use their stoves to cook the food they have foraged at the grocery store and then stored in their refrigerators.” “Hmm”, she mused,  “interesting”. Not being much of a forager or cook, Juniper eats out regularly. She and Big B use their fridge as a staging area for beverages: bottles of craft beers and waters crowd a lone gallon of milk and container of exotically flavored fat free coffee creamer.

We picked a good weekend for our first visit to Canton. It was a cloudy and cold February day, with rain in the forecast. There was no sign of the 200,000 visitors that are reputed to descend upon this small town of 5,000 the first weekend of each month. We easily found parking close to the entrance, wrestled the borrowed wagon down from the truck bed and headed towards the Trade Pavilions with excitement. Juniper had a mapped out all the vendors she was hoping to visit, but we quickly abandoned  her strategic plans as soon as we stepped into the market. Sooo many bright and interesting objects attracted our gaze and splintered our focus. Canton had cast its First Monday Trade Days spell upon us and we were mesmerized. Of course we stopped at the very first shop and partially filled the wagon with bric-a-brac we hadn’t planned to need.

Treasures are hiding in plain sight at the world’s largest flea market in Canton, Texas

Surprised at how quickly the assemblage of goodies was mounding in our wagon, we shook off the bewitching lure of cute and adorable doo-dads and resolved to stick to the list. Juniper’s needs were  specific, so once again,  we headed for the Pavilions. The large metal buildings housing stalls of vendors seemed a more likely place to find a cache containing the sugar mold and wall mirror Juniper was hunting for.  I was dubious about the old window she was dearly hoping to find, but suggested that later in the afternoon we might swing through the fields of tented folding tables piled with old toys, tools, and  household detritus for that piece of junk. Apparently she wanted to knock out the panes and turn it into some sort of picture frame.

Balsa wood cutouts were a popular item

We spent the rest of the afternoon happily shopping and checking items off the list. Juniper found her old window immediately, and it seemed to be the last one available for sale, as all the other stacks of windows in the stall bore sold stickers. She snapped it up for $15, and the seller graciously agreed to hold it for the afternoon as it was too unwieldy to fit into the wagon. I was astonished to see that old windows were the prize of the day, since no sooner did Juniper put her money down on the seemingly last available decrepit window in Canton,  than we noticed them popping up all over the place, each paint shredded one looking funkily more desirable than the one she had already purchased.

Our favorite shop was Simplicity on Row 46. You can look it up online at simplicityonrow46.com. It  was an absolute treasure trove of home decor and what Juniper calls “set arounds”. She found her mirror there, and in spite of claiming that I did not need another thing for my house, I caved and bought a large blue earthen vase and a stainless steel segmented hanging fish. We headed back to the truck, because our final purchases were too big for the wagon.

Scooter rental half the fun in Canton

As we crawled through the market rows in our big pick-up truck, we were so grateful that the hover-round scooter traffic was not the nightmare it might have been on a more beautiful day. You see, scooter riding in Canton is on par with the Ferris wheel at the Rodeo! Every row of shops at First Monday Trade Days features at least one scooter rental stall.  Moms and dads each holding a kid in their lap, teenagers, ladies of a certain age loaded down with shopping bags…..all scooting around the market in their big puffy rolling arm chairs. We made a mental note that it would make it easier to bring Nana next time knowing we could hire a scooter. Maybe even lure the husbands with the promise of streaming TV on their iPhones while lounging in their comfy scooters.

It’s easier to rent a cart than drag a wagon from home

The wagon turned out to be really useful to carry all our smaller purchases, but would have been hard to manoeuver in a crowd. It took up quite a bit of space in the pick up as well. We noticed a lot of people had two-wheeled wire shopping carts complete with colorful cup holders, and it turned out those could be rented for the day at any number of vendors. We made another mental note to leave the wagon at home on our next trip; we had so much fun, we will definitely be back.