I am happy to be taking part in #marketfriday initiated by 
for the very first time.
After spending about five weeks in Cape Coral, Florida we decided to cross the state and make our way to the east coast of Florida. Spending a few days at Daytona Beach has become part of our trip for the past several years. Basking in the sun on the beaches on the Atlantic Ocean, reminds of our younger years. In the past we have made our way east by traveling the roads that take you smack through Orlando and into the congested area around Disney World. This year we decided to take a different, less congested route to get across the state. This route took us through Ocala Florida and through the Ocala National Forest. What a great choice this ended up being. It seemed as though the Ocala National Forest and the road that we took would never end. A rural area that seemed to go on forever. This forest was was established in 1908 as the first National Forest east of the Mississippi.
The Ocala National Forest is the second largest nationally protected forest in the U.S. It covers 607 square miles of Central Florida. This part of our road trip was the most peaceful part of our journey out of the 4,125 miles we traveled.
There was nothing but pristine land the entire drive, no people, few cars, and no BILLBOARDS.
This scene suddenly changed when we got into the small town of Barberville. At first we passed right by the BARBERVILLE YARD ART EMPORIUM, but a quick look to our left caught our attention and we decided to turn around.
All of the following pictures, and there are a lot of them, are one of a kind works of art.
Some of the pieces, handcrafted by many different artists, were simply amazing.
Lets see what you guys think as I take you on a little tour of the place.
This sign says it all. There is not a single word on this sign that is false advertising.
Let's get started with the life size figures, tooled from copper and aluminum. These works of art line the roadway, standing majestically along both sides of this magical corner lot.
The number of hours that each individual creation must have taken was hard for me to imagine.
Every life size statue was so real looking, I was waiting for them to come alive.
I was thinking of jumping on this guy and hitting the trails of the Ocala National Forest that was just a mile away.
The tooling on each life size figure had me awestruck.
So, this is where Big Foot has been hiding all these years.
One piece after the next had me flabbergasted.
This one was my favorite. The amount of time it must have taken to complete this project had to involve a thousand man hours. This was the first statue that I wanted to know the price of.
As dumbstruck as I was over the beauty of each piece, the price had me even more perplexed.
I'm not sure how the artist that created this piece could make any money at the price it was listed for.
Now don't get me wrong, $3,500 is a lot of money, but after the cost of the materials needed to create this piece, what was the artists hourly wage, less than a few bucks an hour.
After spending about a half of an hour admiring the statues along the roadside, we finally made our way into the place, oh boy. This sign reads and MUCH MUCH MORE. HOLY COW, wait until you see what is on display inside the fences.
Being a woodworker and thinking that I had mastered the skills that it takes to build furniture, the following pieces of furniture had me reevaluating my own skills.
What, are you kidding me? This looks like a jigsaw puzzle.
This piece had enough room in front of it for me to take a seat.
It may look uncomfortable, not so, for a big guy like myself it was made to suit.
Once again the price tag had me wondering how in the world these artists make any money.
Hundreds of pieces of artwork, constructed from wood, had me not wanting to leave this area of America's Largest Variety of Unique Handcrafted Outdoor Art.
As we continued to tour the place, we were overwhelmed by the shear number of pieces that were on display.
Who else but 
could make friends with a gorilla?
The Nativity display was awesome. The detail of every figure was so real. I wonder how long this display took to make.
At first, the bench created by this artist had me wondering what I was looking at.
I've run out of words to explain just how awesome of a place this was, so just enjoy the remainder of the tour.
If I had to guess how many pieces of art were on display my guess would be 10,000, probably more.
That's all folks. I told you from the start that this #MarketFriday post had a lot of pictures, and now you can see why.
In the past I've always thought of a market as a place to purchase food.
Although this is my first post in this community, my partner has been involved for some time now. Whenever she did a #MarketFriday post and it didn't center around food I would question her content.
As is usually the case, I WAS WRONG. After reading
Happy to be joining in on the fun!