Smart Transportation

As I prepare for the Big Move to the second city/city of big shoulders/city with deep dish pizza, I found two companies in which to rent cars. ZipCars & I-Go are car sharing businesses that position cool cars in neighborhoods for people to use for a day or days at a time. Gas & insurance are included in the price & reservations are made online. The environmental benefits are too numerous to list; in fact, I-Go is a non profit agency partnering with the state government to reduce vehicle emissions & encourages ride sharing as well as public transit.

Renting a Mini Cooper would be a sweet way to spend the day running errands or sightseeing around town.

Memphis Farmers Market

Its time again to make the Saturday morning drive to the Memphis Farmers Market this weekend. I am sure that it could be crowded with Memphis in May in full swing, and hopefully the weather will be decent.

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Here is my post about the market from July 2006:

Saturday morning/afternoon was spent at the new farmers market in downtown Memphis. If you like fresh vegetables, flowers, fruit, and other odds & ends, head to the South Main area to Central Station. You will find local purveyors selling their food out of their trucks & cars.

There is a bit of a strategy to this form of shopping: if you go early in the day, you get a better selection of product because the crowds have not passed through; but if you come later in the day, you can bargain a bit more. For example, I arrived an hour prior to closing. For $10 I got a pound of cherry tomatoes, a box of fresh arugula, three HUGE sunflowers, three cucumbers, & a bunch of bright orange zinnias. If the same items were purchased at our fine local grocery stores, the quality (& availability) would not come close.

So, next weekend I recommend getting up a little early, grab some coffee or morning bev of choice, and make the drive downtown. Its worth it.