bad directions...

we had an eco-friendly disaster of sorts this afternoon. but i'm calling it a lesson learned, instead.

started this morning. we seem to be out of fresh stuff... no lettuce, and only a pluot and a white peach in the way of fruit. i don't know what happened--i felt like i bought a lot out at the farmer's market over the weekend, but somehow we ate our way through it too quickly. either that or i didn't buy as much as i thought i did. anyway, our fridge was looking bare and since i'm not buying any produce unless it's local, a trip to the grocery store wasn't going to do me much good. lucy and i had nothing going today so i decided maybe we could make a trip to another farmer's market in the county (there are 18 of them!). can you believe that out of 18 markets, none run on a wednesday? none run on a monday either, for that matter. i searched for markets in the neighboring county and was excited to find one that ran from 4-8 pm, in downtown san leandro. not quite nearby our house at 27 miles away, but the webpage promoting the market promised a good time, with lots of local fruits & veggies, gourmet foods, fresh cut flowers, live music, family entertainment, etc.

jeremy offered to come home a bit early from work so we all could go together. a family outing. fun, right? on our way out the door, we quickly googled the market and copied down the directions. half an hour later we were driving around where the market should have been but... nothing. thinking we were just in the wrong area of the very large shopping center, we asked a few locals about the whereabouts of the farmer's market--and were told with certainty that it was only held on saturdays.

sigh.

it was a quiet ride back home to say the least. i fumed over the fact that, though our intentions were good, our actions actually ended up being the exact opposite of eco-friendly... in addition to wasting $10 worth of gas and finding ourselves stuck in rush hour traffic. we did stop at a park to offset our feelings of defeat, and so the trip wasn't entirely wasted. lucy got to put her little toes in the sand, so all was not lost in the end.

got home and checked out the market website again, convinced that i'd read something that was out of date, or misunderstood the information. nope. the wednesday market is held at a different location than the saturday market. just a little ways down the same road. 2.5 miles, to be exact.

double sigh.

notes to self:

when printing directions, take a bit of extra time to ensure that said directions will lead you to where you wish to go.

do not rely on the knowledge of perfect strangers. or, if you must rely on the knowledge of perfect strangers, get more than 1 opinion. lots of people don't know what they're talking about.