#4 A Giant Flea Market and a Crack in the World

We left Texarkana, Tx. heading west on the interstate, and decided to leave the beaten path on our route south towards Athens, Texas. Although some of the state highways are a little slower than the interstate, they really do move along well and you are usually rewarded with some great views of the countryside. Texas Highway 19 was no exception and proved to be a scenic 60 mile drive complete with longhorn cattle, a number of really big Texas mansions, and a generally hilly countryside, reminding us of a larger scale southern Wisconsin. Taking this route, we missed Dallas entirely. Darn!

Although the highway was not at all hilly, it had a rough surface, and while tooling along Anne heard a loud POP! It was probably one of the stones from the pavement. She hollered “Oh, Darn” (not exactly, but you get the idea) and I knew it wasn’t good. Yes, a stone had hit the windshield low on the passenger’s side and made a nice starburst about one inch in diameter. We had this happen once before, and thanks to listening to the RV Navigator’s podcast, I knew these could be repaired pretty easily with a kit you could get at Wal Mart (elsewhere, too I suspect). The kit consists of a resin and plunger assembly used to force the resin into the crack. A little heat on the inside of the windshield wicks the resin in further. Exposing it to the sun’s ultraviolet rays hardens the resin, and ALAKAZAM!!!! You have a crack-free windshield again. It worked well, due in no small part to the highly skilled application techs. Check out the intense concentration of the Crack Repair Tech below:

Aout 20 miles from Athens, we passed through Canton, Texas, a town that boasts the world’s biggest flea market. We were surprised that the First Monday Flea Market was being held this weekend, because we are never fortunate enough to actually be in a place when a special event is taking place. We decided to stay an extra day to give the pets and us a rest and to go to see what bargains we could find, but don’t really need.

We stayed in a nice campground outside of town, and the next morning set out early for the market which turned out to be bigger than we could have imagined. It stretched for many blocks in all directions with campgrounds at the fringes; it had stalls both indoors and outdoors. One vendor told us that the market, which has been running continuously since 1851, has 200 acres of parking! For those of you who know the Kane County Flea Market, this one was perhaps 10 times as big. Since we were early in the day and it’s the off season, not all vendors were open, but gradually more opened, and we managed to find a few things to buy.

We were glad we stopped in Athens, though we never did see the Acropolis.