Around Atlanta {Dragon Con}

After years of waiting on the littles to get “old enough”, we finally made our way down for Dragon Con parade!  Every Labor Day Weekend, nearly 60,000 geeks and sci-fi fans from all over the world descend on Atlanta for a pop culture convention focusing on science fiction, gaming, comics and the likes.  A highlight for locals is the parade and it was such a treat to finally attend!!  I mean, if any family loves characters and parades, it is US.

First things first, the littles made the first Marta ride.  Needless to say, they loved it.

We took the train to North Avenue and parked ourselves right on the curb at the corner of the staging area and the start line.  We had so much fun mingling with the characters.  There’s something for everyone in this parade… from Star Wars to Ghostbusters to zombies to Bloodpool, and everything in between.  It’s very well done and everyone is very friendly.

This was only our first time going to the parade, but I do have a few tips:

• Do not try to drive down into the city.  Take Marta.  It’s smarta.  If you can pre-purchase your Marta cards, do that!  There was quite a line at the station just to load up Breeze cards.
• There are three stops near the parade route.  We hopped off at North Avenue because it was closest to the start line and would therefore also be ending first.  We lucked out with curb side seats right in the staging area at the start line.
• Get there early.  The parade rolls at 10.  We got to Marta at 8 and were in our seats by 8:40.
• Bring snacks and drinks, but know that we saw nowhere close to use the bathroom.  We also took a blanket to kind of mark our territory, which was nice.
• The fans were really quite lovely.  Nobody was pushing or shoving their way to the front and everyone was respectful.
• The performers were also very nice.  Many stopped for high fives with the littles, which they loved.
• Some parts of the parade could be very scary for young kids (see pics).  This is why we waited until ages almost 7 and 10 go to.

After the parade we walked to the Varsity, another Atlanta institution, for lunch.  This is a must-visit when in the city!  The moment you enter this iconic drive-in (or eat-in), you hear the din of “What’ll ya have? What’ll ya have?” being called out from the counter.

For us it was heavy weight, naked dog, chili slaw dog, ring one and f.o.  … there’s a lingo for locals and old-timers.  We love the V so much that we celebrated Honey’s 30th birthday with their food truck!

And once we were sufficiently stuffed, we hopped back on Marta and headed home.  It was such a fun family day and the littles are already in cahoots to score actual tickets to the convention in 2016.

xoxo

Dragon Con

DIXIE DELIGHTS DELIVERED
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