So the Food Truck Rally was a lot of fun, but very crowded! Oh my. Huntsville is figuring out all of the cool ways to enjoy our downtown atmosphere/entertainment district in conjunction with experimenting with unique foods and funky ways to enjoy it. Estimates say there were about 7500 folks milling around (mainly waiting in lines!). But, I think it’s something that will continuously become smoother and more enjoyable as we figure out the best way to keep promoting the food truck scene. They are more events like this scheduled each month throughout the summer.
So Rob and I got there right at 6 (when it was supposed to kick off) and when we rolled up there were already hundreds of cars trying to park. Luckily we found nice parking not too far down the street and strolled hand in hand toward Food Truck Utopia. Also luckily, I ate a snack after crossfit before leaving the house and that probably saved the night. We walked up to Neon Lilly first, which was on my short list. They serve Russian food! How neat. So we got in line, which was probably about 30 folks long at that point. I think we waited near an hour before we were able to order. By that time I was pretty hungry, but not hangry. Definitely thankful for that snack! We grabbed the little box of food once we got it and immediately walked very fast toward where we thought we could find beer. I sent Rob in to get the beer while I waited outside on the curb. Rob was gone for about 15 minutes so naturally I ate half of the food without him 🙂 It was Pelmini (little dumplings filled with meat) and a bit of slaw. Delicious really. The amount of people was really insane! The russian food was very good though. I would definitely give them my business again; you can’t fake authenticity. Neon Lilly was legit. I wish I could have taken awesome pictures like I wanted all night, but the atmosphere was just NOT conducive to it. Hard to juggle the food in your hands with nowhere to really sit, and then after eating at Neon Lilly, it got dark.
So this is cool- while we were standing at Neon Lilly watching the little Slovakian lady prepare our meal, I look over my shoulder and there is a photographer with a camera pointed at us. So I gave her a smile! And while I was reading the AL.com article about the event today, there we were! Finally! I am famous. 
Once we had a beer in our hands and a tiny bit of food in our bellies, we felt better and tackled our next line at Earth and Stone. This place specializes in brick oven flamed pizza or something. So, we stood in line and people watched and sipped our beer. The sunset was really beautiful- I tired to snap a cool picture of Rob. It came out okay.
The line, much to our delight, moved along pretty well and it wasn’t until we got up to the window that we realized they were serving out of both sides…and the line we were in was not for the pizza, but for BBQ. So! Trying not to look a quick moving line gift horse in the mouth, we ordered some BBQ pork nachos and quickly scurried into the other side’s pizza line while we ate the nachos. They were decent- I’m not a nacho person. Something about the weird “cheese” goop really icks me out. But, it was food and Rob was happy, so I was happy.
We waited in the “pizza” line for another 30 minutes and ordered some cheese slices, and then waited for the cheese slices to be done for another 30 minutes. In that amount of time, they ran out of food (hangry people in line nearly had melt downs) and I sent Rob on another beer run. The people watching was entertaining. Mostly it made me happy I don’t have kids (sorry parents). It looked like a nightmare watching all of the parents try and keep it together while dragging along their children. When we finally got our pizza, half of it was super fresh and the other half had been sitting awhile. So I got to experience really awesome pizza and pretty crappy pizza. But is pizza ever really THAT crappy? No. You know what IS crappy? This picture Rob took of me with the pizza. Ugh, terrible. But yay for memories right??
So if that nachos back to back with the pizza wasn’t bad enough, we headed over to Sugar Belle, the cupcake truck and, you guessed it, waited in line. By this time, it was nearly 9pm which was the cut off for the event. But! We had come this far and were committed to ending the night with a sugary bang. We ordered a Vanilla Thunder cupcake and split it. Sometimes I just enjoy the simple things. Cheese pizza and a Vanilla cupcake.
After the cupcake we headed back to the car and went home. Were asleep by ten and up by 8 the next morning to enjoy a very lovely weekend. All in all we had a very nice date night; the only truck on my list that we didn’t make it to was the Bacon truck, and when we found that one the line was just…worse than any other line, so we skipped it for the “lower hanging fruit” trucks. BBOLC was great on Saturday; I did more squat snatches than I could shake a stick at. Oy! I need lifting shoes so badly. Maybe for my birthday! (In27dayswhosecounting).
Also, a note from my editor:
“stop this and pet me”
You win Sam!
The Wayfaring Friend 