Can’t complain about yesterday’s weather. It was a warm, sunny day with the temperature topping out at 80 degrees. Donna went out for a 20-mile bike ride before noon. She said it was a little breezy – she had a headwind as rode east. Of course, that gave her a nice tailwind when she circled back. But the breeze was nothing like the gusty winds we had on Saturday.

After her bicycle ride, we rode the scooter to the Mesa Market Place on East Baseline Road. It was about 15 miles from here. Mesa is a big city – the largest city by area in Arizona. The Mesa Market Place is a huge flea market. It has four covered breezeways, each a mile and a quarter long. The Mesa Market Place has been in operation since 1996 and attracts many snowbirds who spend the day wandering through the vendor stalls.

Mesa Market Place breezeway

Our first order of business was lunch. Donna had a bowl of chili and I had two hard shell tacos. The chili was good, the tacos were ordinary. From there we were on a mission to find local raw honey. I want to  continue taking daily doses of local honey to try to combat the effects of pollen allergies. It seems to work, I haven’t had nearly as much allergy trouble as I had last year at this time.

We found someone selling local honey after asking one of the vendors. He directed us to the south end of breezeway “C”. The woman selling the honey told us she has been in the same stall for the past seven years! She’s phasing out of the honey business though and will focus on selling her aprons and other handmade items of clothing.

Local honey

As we wandered back to the north side where we were parked, we found a vendor with local salsa. The Arizona Byers Salsa is sugar-free, made by the Byers family here in Mesa. We tried a couple of samples and bought two jars of the medium to hot salsa. They don’t have anything without hot in the description. They also have Ghost Pepper salsa that I wasn’t brave enough to try.

Arizona Byers salsa

We were back home around 3pm. The marketplace is fun, but you would need a full day to get through it all. I’m not sure it’s something I could spend a full day at though. We did see another flea market, the Apache Trail Flea Market, on the way home. We’ll have to check that out.

Donna has a doctor appointment this morning. We’ll take the scooter. This afternoon, she’s checking into a hotel room a few miles from here. She has a series of live and taped radio appearances scheduled by her publisher, Storey Publishing, to promote her new book Clear the Clutter, Find Happiness. She needs a landline to connect reliably with radio stations over the course of six hours.

It’s supposed to rain this afternoon, around 3pm. If the rain holds off, I will scooter Donna to the hotel, otherwise she’ll take a cab.