Every other year, my county celebrates the birthplace of the neighborhood and has a small festival that pays homage to the founding fathers of the area. One of the highlights of the festival is a gumbo cook-off contest that usually has more than a hundred entries, but people will stand in long lines to test out brand new gumbo recipes, and it is totally worth it. Gumbo can be a pretty dense dish, so the festival is always held well into the fall season when the temperatures have cooled off. However this year, it was pretty much freezing and windy so the neighborhood council set up massive tents with outside walls to block the wind, but in order to keep the festival goers warm, there were heaps of portable heating systems set up. The heating systems basically looked like metal trees, and were powered by gas. The propane heating systems could be moved around as necessary, usually taking up more than two or four tables each. The gas heating systems did a enjoyable job of heating the inside of the tent. The chilly outdoor weather seemed to get worse as the morning went on, so it was a real blessing to have a warm and cozy spot to hang out in and care about the food. There were a few of the vendors around the festival that had little generators that powered portable electric heating systems to warm their sections up. Despite the unexpected and almost freezing temperatures, the festival was a enjoyable success for the town, and everyone was stoked with their food and all of us look forward to next year’s event, and hopefully all of us won’t need all those propane heating systems next year.