Indoor Flea Market - Exploring Treasure Marts in Hudson Florida

 

I'm sure this could be considered another episode in the Flea Market Adventures series.. 

     My son wanted to go out thrifting last Saturday, and who am I to argue about that? He collects rare and unusual VHS tapes and different kinds of film media. Tapes are increasingly hard to find, but when you get outside of the big city, you can find some good stuff in the smaller thrift stores. This was NOT one of those small stores.

     Located in the center of Hudson Florida, just north of where we live in Tampa, is a massive Wal-Mart sized indoor flea market that takes hours to just to walk through called Treasure Marts. Each booth specializes in it's own brand of junk, and as these people are paying for spaces, each unique space is merchandised with some care. That being said, most of the spaces only have so much room to work with, so there is just shit piled up really high, bookcases on top of each other, stuff just hiding everywhere. There was no way we could see it all, but we gave it the best hour of our lives before we got hungry.

It was endless.

     My son found a small cache of VHS tapes under some tables. There was a strict rule, if it did not have a QR code with the price on the back, they could not sell it to you at the register. Of course, we did find some cool stuff that had no stickers, so it was left at the front. It was 50% off day, so every booth was discounted, which was nice, but hugely stressful because of the amount of people and little room to walk. We found books and tapes, it just took so long to take turns looking at things with other customers, we only got to see a small percentage of the store. That's my son in the picture if you recognize him from old posts. He is now 6'3" and 15 years old.. being a couple of big boys in a small space is not really our thing. 

One person at a time.

Artax the book cat giving his approval

     I have to go back. I know there are all kinds of books that need to be bought. There was a section that was all books from the 40's and back, but it was swarmed with older people with a purpose and no where for me to stand. All the books I bought were ones I do not own, and the Shadow Hawk from 1960 was a welcome little score. Everything was 50 cents, and half off of that, so the prices are right in there! I think I'm going to start hitting the Flea Markets again.. and on that note.. what makes a blog post part of the Flea Market Adventures series? I looked backed at the old posts, and every one of them I was with my son, and I always found a beer to drink, so those will be the qualifying agents. 

Thanks for reading.