Greater Hartford Irish Festival 2013

Haley and I have spent a large part of our summer traveling. She leads a rather exciting life and needs me along for the ride. Last weekend we drove to CT for the Greater Hartford Irish Festival so Haley could play with The John Whelan Band. The really great part was Haley's friend, Sofia, and her family live close enough to the festival that we were able to spend the weekend with them. We drove up on Friday and the girls spent all afternoon and evening tackling a long list of things they had planned to do...everything from making jewelry to homemade soaps and scrubs to playing some music. They kept each other busy all day.

Saturday morning we got up early, the girls made French toast, and then we headed to the local lake beach for a swim. Haley and Sofia ran with boogie boards into the lake, jumped off the docks, and took a turn at paddling a couple kayaks Sofia's father and brother had rented. After swimming came showers, lunch, and a drive to the festival. Haley did a sound check with the band then performed...the band was scheduled to play 30 min after the festival opened.

They played a great set broadcast live over the internet. We watched a ceili band, did a little dancing, looked at all the crafts on display, and ate some festival food before heading back to Sofia's.

Sunday, Haley and I headed to Brian's for a fiddle lesson before a rough drive home. Little did we know that the normally 2.5 hour drive home from White Plains would take over 4 hours. We hit traffic a couple times then closer to home, a torrential downpour caused flooding of a major road. Haley and I made it through the flooded area only to find ourselves as one of 3-4 cars on a normally very busy highway with traffic backed up going the other way for miles and miles. It looked like the zombie apocalypse had hit and everyone was leaving New Jersey. We made it home eventually.