folk festival 2013

Once again we had a rocking good time at the American Folk Festival at the Bangor Waterfront.  It is one of our favorite weekends to go chill by the river, listen to great music and eat a bag of kettle corn taller than Maya.  We lucked out this year with the most spectacular weather of the summer- two cloudless days with a river breeze. 

 

My family came for the day Saturday and we got to listen to Irish music, rockabilly (I think this is a fancy word for rock and roll), New England fiddle and salsa. 

 

The kettle corn is fistful-eating kind of good.

The great thing about the Folk Festival if you have kids is that they need not be confined to a seat to listen to music.  They danced, played and rolled down the hill. 

We even got to watch a train come right alongside one of the stages.  For moms who have a child like Maya it is a dream come true.  Even Maya isn't louder than a train.

Then it was time for our first ever real volunteer shift at the Folk Festival.   The festival is technically "free" but it costs a lot to put it on and they continue to go the route of donations. Enter in the bucket brigade. 

I tell you, people just couldn't say no to Maya.  She carried the blue bucket and we carried the red one and hers was full of money while ours had 2 pity dollars from my mom and her friend.

When you donate you get a sticker that says "I kicked in!" and then you can turn it in for a free piece of pie (with purchase of meal) at Governor's restaurant.  What a deal!

I was so tickled to see Julie (hi Julie!) who is the daughter of my friend Elaine who doesn't live in Maine anymore and I haven't seen in years.  I think she recognized Maya who was hard to miss with her yellow volunteer shirt, oversized apron and bucket full of cash.  It was so cute to see Julie's girls come put money in her bucket!

Cutting up a rug in the dance tent!

 



I cropped this pic but it was taken once again by Jeff Kirlin. Thank you Jeff! I love this photo.

The second day we got to do some contra dancing in the dance tent and visit with Emilie and had lunch with them.  Ella ate a piece of wood-fired pizza as big as her head.  I swear most of the food is not as big as the members of a our family but perhaps we just made sure to eat the ones that were.  (It must also be noted that Ella's pizza was pesto, tomato and mozzeralla and I'm pretty sure she had to hand in her picky eaters member card to get it.)


Then we found Kaylee and Kendall and it was on to Quebequois and Zydeco music for the afternoon!

 

We hung out in the children's area for a while checking out the lobster trap rocking chairs and making giant bubbles.

 

 

 

We generally give one big donation to one bucket when we arrive each day.  But little kids had so much fun putting dollars in Maya's bucket that we decided the next day to bring our donation in dollar bills so she could enjoy spreading it around and collecting stickers.  She was plastered with them.  (That's a lot of potential pie!)

But then I soon realized that Kaylee had outdone us.  She had brought quarters with her!  Outwitted by an eight-year-old! Next year we will have to rethink our strategy...

I'm never as proud of the city of Bangor as I am during the Folk Festival.  That we brought this here 10 plus years ago and have kept it going... it has made Bangor a much cooler place in my opinion.