Grant Seafood Festival
Monday February 26th, 2007 at 8:45 pmThis weekend our town hosted their annual seafood festival. Apparently its the longest running seafood festival in the South East. We’ve had it on our calendars since we moved here, and the whole family came up to check it out. Saturday we left the house just after 11 am, the time that the festival started .. there was a line of traffic about 7 cars deep on Grant road before the turn to go down to the parking lot (which was at least 30 cars deep). I think it took 20 min. just to park! Sean, Dad and I actually walked next to the car rather then sitting in traffic. The place was packed! Their huge parking lot was totally filled. There were lines everywhere. The girls decided to find a place to make a home base and the guys went to get food tickets. They have a bunch of permanent tables set up .. so we found one of those and the guys came back with tickets and beer. We were in the sun the entire time (except for Ella, who’s stroller luckily fit right in the shade of our table), but the weather was perfect. What we realized is that people get there around 9 or 10 .. bring their own shade tents/chairs/picnic gear, and then just basically tailgate the whole day. There was a band that played rock and roll cover songs, and there was TONS of food .. seafood and burgers and hot dogs too. We each took turns going to get something bring back for the whole group to try. There were lines for the food, but actually they all moved pretty quickly, they had a good system working .. but after fried clams, conch fritters, steamed clams, and fried shrimp (and beer) we were all stuffed! .. We had only been there a little more then an hour when we decided to check out the craft section on our way back to the car. I was surprised to see how many craft vendors they had there. Mom found a neat oil lamp made from a geode slice and a chunk of quartz .. hard to describe but pretty neat.
We were on our way home by 2 pm .. the line to the festival on Grant road that was 7 cars deep was now a mile long .. almost all the way back to our street! We were all exhausted when we got home, and we were only out for 3 hours total. I was dumb and put sunblock on the baby and totally forgot to put some on myself .. so my face is pretty red 
Overall it was a pretty good time .. Nothing I ate was spectacular, but it wasn’t terrible either. Next year I think it would be worth getting there a little earlier to set up a shade tent and chairs, rather then standing in the sun, we’d probably stick around a little longer and try some more stuff.
Other then that, it was great having the whole family here, it might sound funny but Saturday night was the first time I had my whole family to eat a home cooked meal at my dining room table .. I never even had them over at the condo .. now I really need to get a table that can fit everybody
On this day: Getting to know you
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