by Pete Eisenmann
Festival Month In Durham – Halfway Through September!!
A year of firsts! My last blog post was a quick review of the July 4th weekend and my family’s experience of a Durham Bull’s baseball game and the Festival on The Eno.
This post will cover my experience up to the mid-point of the month of September, a month of festivals in Durham. As a newbie to the Bull City I have finally conditioned myself to keep pace with the amazing and overwhelming hurricane of activities that is virtually a never ending gastronomic, social, and auditory assault on one’s person – along with the realization that you just can’t do it all (but you can try).
The month started out with Labor Day and the Food Truck Rodeo in Durham Central Park. Honestly, we could smell the festival before it came into view. 50. Count them – 50 food trucks and vendors from lobster to hamburgers, ice cream to mac and cheese, and, seemingly everything in between, accompanied by music in the park from some very talented young artists.
The next weekend came quickly and along with it came the Bull Durham Blues Festival and the Jerk Fest in center city. The latter is a celebration of Caribbean Culture and, once again, the smells and sounds that filled the air that day were amazing – Reggae music, steel drums and jerk seasoned meats and vegetables on the grill – the laughter of the children was also musical.
After the Third Friday Durham on the 18th, the Saturday and Sunday brought Center Fest – the 41st celebration– the center of town is AGAIN filled with food trucks, local artists, various crafts, and musicians. The weather was excellent, a bit hot in the middle of the day, but there were some hints of Fall weather early in the day and it seemed that most folks were anticipating the cooler temps to come.
This coming weekend (September 26th and 27th) has the Latino Festival at Rock Quarry Park from 12-5 and the NC Pride Parade and Festival, celebrating our LGBTQ community. This is from 10AM – 5PM and the parade starts at 1PM in the Ninth Street area. Saturday evening wraps up with Lemurpalooza, with (again) food trucks and live music at the Duke Lemur Center.
If all that isn’t enough (and it shouldn’t be), you can welcome in the month of October at Bull City Burger & Brewery’s Octoberfest, with a street party – food, beer, music, and kid’s activities.
Can’t find anything to do in Durham on the weekends? You just aren’t looking.