Last Food Truck Rodeo of grad school

Does that not seem momentous to anyone else?

It isn't even necessarily that I do a lot at the food truck rodeos. I have my favorite trucks (Sweet Traditions by LeAne and CJ's Street food, although I'm kind of sad that I haven't been able to get their surf and turf dog since last year!) that I visit, and I might check out a couple new ones with friends, but it is more just being immersed in a sea of people all coming out to support local businesses and entrepreneurs. Plus, you get to see people you know and check in with the vendors you really like (and who recognize you, which is always really nice!) to see how business is going. I love being a part of that community, which Durham has in spades.

I was thinking about it last week, sitting between a popular microbrewery where you can play board games/old arcade games/pingpong and what is technically a music hall and watching the ebb and flow of people biking up, running into friends unexpectedly, moving a brightly decorated bass drum... It is a vibrant little area, a random side street with never enough parking that I will miss. I drove through a random street festival downtown Saturday night and asking one my friends that lives nearby if she knew what was going on she rattled off a handful of things it might have been since so much was happening that day... It is a fun place to live and I'm not looking forward to leaving it.

But I will come back to visit, which is why it was my last rodeo of grad school and not my last food truck rodeo full stop. I have people I care about here that I can't imagine not coming to visit and places I'm fond of...