Saturday November 4 at Buc-ee's, Terrell TX and Canton TX First Monday Trade Days Weekend

November 05, 2017

So as time is ticking down toward when I head home, I have been doing some interesting things. Today my sister in law and I went to a very unique place off of Route 20 in Terrell Texas. A huge place with no tractor trailer trucks...they do not allow them. Anyway the place has a beaver for a mascot. It is on many of the souvenirs as well as food of which there are many choices. Curiously enough, not a table or chair in the whole place. People buy food, hot and cold, and take it out to their cars to eat. They have fruit cups, hummus and raw vegetables all packed up to go in cups. Cold sandwiches as well as hot food...tamales, and kolaches of all kinds to name a few. If you want a drink you have to pay for the cup first, cash registers are only at each end of the building and it is a lot of walking to see everything. And see everything we did! They sell some very popular coolers called RTIC which were on sale for 25% off. All sizes from travel cup size to huge wheeled coolers. Quite a crowd around that display. They also sell smokers, several kinds of wood, and all the utensils a good bbq person would need. They had one wall of bags of nuts of all kinds, as well as trail mix and a huge display of jerky, both exotic and more common kinds I guess(not interested in trying any of those so looked and moved on. They also had Planters peanuts which to me seemed sort of incongruous with the Buc-ee brand so prevalent! We pretty much looked at everything in the place and I only bought one item-a bag of Buc-ee bites. I already packed them to take home.Not exactly sure what they are but they are famous for them. I took pictures as it is such a huge building as well as so many people everywhere, both in the building and the gas station.. It was fun to walk around and see what they have. Some of the more surprising things to me were a whole gun/fishing shop as well as cigarette sales($5.99 a pack, not sure if that is a good price as I don't smoke). They had many ceramic pieces as well as lots of Christmas things. I think I read every sign they had and there are hundreds!

After Buc-ees, we got back on Rte 20 East and headed to Canton. It is a mostly quiet town except on Trade Day weekends which is the first weekend of every month. It started in 1850 on the first Monday but has expanded to the first weekend. It is the longest continuous trade day market in the US.

So you get off the highway at one of four possible exits and immediately are in bumper to bumper traffic inching along-2 lanes each way, parking on each side of the road (from 3-5 dollars) depending on how far away. Two roads that intersect form the entire sale area, probably 2 miles each way. Cars park on hills, in dirt, grass and everywhere...it looked like an ad for every pick up truck ever made! We went down the main road-Highway 19- and parked in the parking lot of a real estate company. Right next to a man selling puppies out of the back of a pick up truck. Pure white Pyrenees dogs. I, who am not good with dogs, thought they were adorable! He had two females and 4 males left and he had them separated in two cages. He had the females' cage open but the dogs were very skittish. He told me that they are 8 weeks old and most people buy them to keep coyotes and other animals away from goats. While he was talking to me some other people came by that were looking for a dog for that reason as they have goats.

We did not buy much, but it was a fun 83 degree day of looking around