Duluth Food Truck Fridays - Duluth, Georgia

[Image Source: DuluthGA.net]

What: Duluth Food Truck Fridays

Where: 3167 Main Street, Duluth, Georgia 30096

When: Fridays, 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.,

September 6th - October 25th   Extended to November 15th!!!!

Website: http://www.duluthga.net/foodtruckfridays

Cost: Free Parking, Free Admission, Food Prices Vary 

Billed as a "community block party," this Historic Downtown Duluth, Ga. event runs every Friday from September 6th through October 25th and features a rotating line-up of Atlanta's best mobile eateries. Check out the event website for that week's food truck lineup as well as the entertainment planned for the day. In fact, Friday September 20th's line up was announced yesterday morning. There will be live music starting at 5:30 p.m. and a screening of Great Gatsby on the lawn planned for 8 o'clock.

I do have one piece of advice for you if you ever decide to check out Duluth Food Truck Fridays this fall: get there early! Let me re-iterate that: GET THERE EARLY!!!

That was probably the only regret the wife and I had when we went this past Friday for our first ever visit. I had geek-related errands and Brooke was working late. So, by the time we finally got there around 7:30 p.m., the lines were long and most of the food trucks had sold out of many of their best dishes. Parking wasn't too bad but the combination of event traffic and the tail end of Friday night rush hour was somewhat frustrating. At least parking was free!

But don't let all that deter you from getting your munch on at this family-friendly shindig. Brooke and I learned about this event earlier that morning when one of the food trucks that Brooke stalks on Facebook, Ibiza Bites, posted that they would be making an appearance. We decided to check it out as a last minute date night idea and we were glad we did. We will definitely go again. It was well worth it. Heck! If we can manage it, we might even go each week that Food Truck Fridays is running. 

Review: Lawerenceville Ghost Tour

Every year for the past four year, Brooke and I have celebrated the Halloween season by experiencing one of Metro Atlanta's local ghost tours. Past experiences include the Norcross Ghost Tour (our very first tour and Brooke's favorite), the Tour of Southern Ghosts at St. Mountain, and the Roswell Ghost Tour (a year-round walking tour presented by Roswell Georgia Paranormal Investigations).

This year, we got our ghost story fix from the great people at the Lawrenceville Ghost Tour. Developed and presented by the Aurora Theatre in partnership with the Lawrenceville Tourism and Trade Association, the tour is open every weekend from May through September and every night in October until Halloween. This is a 90-minute walking tour that takes guest around historic downtown Lawrenceville, stopping at places like the shops that line Honest Alley, the historic jail, and the spot where Hustler Magazine founder Larry Flint was shot on March 6th, 1978 [1][2].

Although the tour did include stories of ghosts, it focused mostly on the quirky history and founding families of the city of Lawrenceville and was less about the scary and more about the macabre. Our tour guide, Madame Macabre, spun witty campfire-style tales replete of Southern Gothic elements and masterful storytelling that would have made William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor proud. You can watch her do her thing on this video from the ghost tour website.



If you need a little more spirits with your Halloween experience, stop (before or after the tour—or hell! why not both) by McCray's Tavern at the corner of N. Perry Street and E. Crogan/Lawrenceville Hwy, where they serve themed drinks in honor of the ghost tour [3].

The tour also does a separate Ghost Trolley Tour which takes guests outside the downtown square area and into surrounding points of interest like the cemetery and the female seminary. Unfortunately, when we went this past Saturday after I finished early voting, we had missed the last day of the Trolley Tour which was the day before. So, expect a review of that next year as we enjoyed this year's outing so much that we plan to come back.

This was a wonderful date night for the wife and I and we definitely recommend it to everyone. It's a family friendly attraction and a fun alternative (or supplement) to trick-or-treating and to costume parties. A definite addition to your "must do" list, whether or not you have children. Check out their website for prices, times, and other details at www.scarystroll.com. And enjoy!

My 2012 Early Voting Experience

I exercised my right to vote this past Saturday, taking advantage of early voting here in Georgia. It was the first year (and the only Saturday of this election cycle) of statewide Saturday voting [1]. The lines were long across the state and the wait at George Pierce Park Community Recreation Center in Suwanee, Ga. where I stood in line reached up to seven and a half hours for some people.

The problem was not "human error or a shortage of machines," according to poll manager Dawn P. Gober, who came out every so often to give citizens updates on wait times for the various sections of the queue. "At most only about nine of the machines are in use at one time," she said.

I got a chance to speak briefly to Ms. Gober after I voted for—honestly!—90 seconds before she had to stop and close the poll at 7p.m. When I asked her what she thought had improved since the 2008 elections, I heard her suppress a chuckle. "Well, there's no long lines at the machines."

She wasn't kidding. When it had been my turn to enter the voting booth, I was the only one physically in front of the 15 voting machines despite the fact that hundreds had gone ahead of me and hundreds more had yet to vote. The issue, she said, was that all four satellite location were only provided with three computer to check voter identity and generate ballot smart cards and that each person manning the computers were basically "doing the job of two people."

"This the first ever Saturday, we've ever been open," Ms. Gober explained. "We didn't expect this kind of turn out. We didn't make any predictions about turn out at all really. We just couldn't." She did predict that she and her fellow poll volunteers will be working until well past 2 a.m., estimating that the George Pierce Park location will have served roughly 1200 citizen by the end of the night. Even though the polls closed at seven that night [2], any one in line at the time of closing would be allowed to vote.