Flea Market Day!

Here in the San Francisco Bay area, we all wait with baited breath for the first Sunday of every month to roll around. Because the first Sunday is.... FLEA MARKET DAY! Woo!

So on July 5, Cpurl and I got up at the crack of dawn, grabbed our little old lady rolling shopping carts, and hit the old Alameda Air Force Base with a vengance.

The now-defunct Alameda Air Force Base is a really cool place for a flea market- it lies on a point on the end of Alameda Island, and is roughly triangular. It has water on two sides of the triangle, and if you look off of one side you are facing the Port of Oakland across the water (think lots of giant shipping containers all stacked up, and cranes to move them around), and if you look across the water on the other side, you have a great view of the city of San Francisco. The only bad thing is that at 7:30 in the morning, it can be really cold. Regardless, it is worth it!!




We have very fancy carts with bike bells on them- Cpurls is red and mine is black. However, when we got to the market, we realized that to really be considered market masters, we would need to sew new linings for our carts out of brightly colored (but coordinating) fabrics- all the cool kids had those. And cup holders- trying to steer a cart with one hand because you have your coffee in the other is likely to result in catastrophe in a place whit tons of antiques at ground level.




The flea market is huge, and it has a rule about no new stuff and no reproductions, so there are many many lovely displays and lots of great stuff to be had.




Bottles...




Balls... (anyone know what these are for? Lawn bowling, maybe?)

Tennis racquettes...

Cool vintage stripey beach umbrellas...

If you had an empty summer cabin, this would be the place to go to furnish it. See the taller wooden rack on the back of the table in the photo? It holds 36 old bread pans, and is now in my house holding letterpress printing supplies.

This is another find that made its way home with me- a vintage egg-laying chicken.

Finally, here is the view from the end of the market- the city of San Francisco!