To Market, To Market I Go

Yesterday I tried something new. I have lived in St Pete for roughly 8 months now. Every Saturday for a good chunk of the year they have a market downtown. I have never gone down there, mostly due to lack of motivation. Yesterday I thought I would give it a shot. The fact that it was a great day outside definitely was another reason that helped in getting me to go.

Also I had a real desire for a good smoothie and I thought getting some fresh fruit to make one with would be nice to have. So I hopped on my bike and rode the roughly 4 miles to the parking lot of Al Lang Field in downtown St Pete.

It was a great bike ride to start the day with. There was a cool breeze in the air so I didn’t get totally sweaty and traffic was fairly light so I didn’t get run over by anyone. If nothing else it made for a great day to be outside.

Once I completed my journey I was surprised by how many people were at the market and how many vendors there were. There were a few places grilling food and lots of produce vendors alongside several people selling different kinds of crafts and things of that nature. One of the best things about the event was that all of the vendors were local so it was all good for the local economy.

One of the first things I noticed was that about half the people had a dog with them. There were dogs in all shapes and sizes. There were the annoying little yippy dogs. There were a couple labs, a very large and pretty German Sheppard and one large black hairy dog that I don’t know the breed of it was just big with black curly fur.

There was a wide variety of people there too. Many that seemed like they were tourists that just wandered through while others were locals out to support the local economy and see old friends. The variety of people made it nice because you get to really appreciate the variety of people that live down here. Most everyone was older than me but that’s to be expected at an event like that. The market really isn’t a big draw for young 20 year olds, especially with Gasparilla going on in Tampa.

The third thing I noticed was the smell. I discovered as I walked around that one of the main places producing the smell was a barbeque grill. They had a decent variety of barbeque foods there and one of the guys working there had on a tux, I thought it was a nice touch; it kind of had a New Orleans feel to it with his outfit. There was a veggie burger and smoothie place, a chocolate place, and a few other places that I can’t remember right now.

After wandering around a little and seeing what everyone had for sale I made my way back to a small produce display. This set up had exactly what I wanted, pineapples and strawberries, my favorite fruits by far. Only 2 places had pineapples and these looked the best. In my mind I thought they looked just like you would expect a pineapple to look. The strawberries also looked very good and were grown just one county away so it made me feel better about buying them. One whole pineapple cost $3 and one tray of strawberries was $2.50. So in summary it was about the same price as the grocery store and they hadn’t been shipped in from some random South American country.

So I had made my purchase for the day and I jumped back onto my bike to head home. It proved to be a slightly more difficult task than the ride there because now I had a bag of strawberries and a pineapple that I had to balance on my handle bar. The bag had a habit of swinging and I had to kind of wind it around my hand to make sure it didn’t swing into my wheel. I survived the trip though and all but 1 of the strawberries did too. The one victim got a little bit crushed but I figure 1 out of 20 or so wasn’t bad.

I had to make a trip to Publix to get the last supplies for my smoothie and when I got back home I made one of the best smoothies I have made yet. I contribute a lot of it to the fresh local fruit that tasted excellent. Overall I would say I’m very satisfied with the market and I think I will be going back many times. I will make sure to take some extra money next time too and buy myself some lunch because several of the places looked really good.

If I have a recommendation out of this is that if there is a local market where you live go and check it out. If you can ride a bike or walk there it’s even better I think. The idea of buying locally is great for the economy and just makes you feel better about your purchase. So get yourself some fresh fruit and some other good local goods.

The Daily Run
Distance: 3.8 miles
Weather: 70 degrees, nice sunny day that was great for a run
Notes of interest: nothing notable