Begorrah Girl's Blog

Earl is now far far somewhere. We did have to move our RV, to higher ground and to make a long story short, we moved to a RV park right near Newport. It is lovely and we will now make it our new RI base.

The weather is perfect, beautiful blue sky with no clouds. There is a good breeze by the water and a tiny nip. I have my first long sleeves on since April!!!

The festival is fanastic, we have a double booth so everything is spread out and its easy to shop. There are lots of babies coming up this way, as we have solds tons of little outfits. We also have new fleece and jackets for ladies which you will soon see on the website.

I am writing to you between customers as the Tarten Terrors play on the main stage in our tent! It is a little loud but a wonderful time. Rich Travis from Newport has been a great help to all the venders, this is such a good festival. They have grown over the years and tonight it will be a packed house for Eileen Ivers.

Enjoy you day everyone and as always safe journey and see you down the road. Sbb, written on the crackberry

Just a quick update and photo. Dennis and I arrived in Newport earlier today. We are nicely set up at Melville Ponds Campground in Portsmouth. I am showing you all the photo as proof incase a tree hits poor Ronan or we get flooded. I was a little worried driving up, but feel much better now that we were given an evacuation map and directions to the shelter. Oh boy.

Normally we would begin setting up at the festival tomorrow, but to be safe with the weather, our tent building is being partially dismantled, when the storm is over we will go in Saturday and set up. The opening of the festival is being delayed two hours.

We drove down to Newport, lots of shops have hurricane signs, it was busy but not crazy. We took the Ocean Drive and stopped at the park to watch the waves, beautiful with stiff cooling breeze. I hope to go again tomorrow morning and see if there is a difference. The schools are all closing tomorrow.

After that we went to do our grocery shopping and had dinner at home. I expected to see mobs of worried people, but everything seems just as usual. We now have the day off tomorrow. I am seeking a place to go and have in mind a little road trip to New Bedford.
I will keep you posted as the storm progresses and as long as I have electric! To all my fellow travelers, please, safe journey and see you down the road. sbb

Milwaukee ended with a bang, a wonderful fireworks display for all along the Lake Michigan coastline. The fireworks were preceded by the scattering of entertainment. All the event entertainment, all genres gathered on stage to perform together, some old songs, some new all fantastic. We packed up and were driving home by a bit after midnight. Pretty late for me.

We started our drive home on Monday with a stop for dinner in Shipshewanna, IN. I was all set to purchase fabric for a quilt, but had trouble focusing on my color choices. The fabric was too beautiful for me to make a decision. The good news is…I backed into and RV spot behind the fabric shop. Ok, I only had to pull in front, straighten out and backup, but still it was good for me.

From Shipshewanna we drove to Michigan for the night, we were exhausted from the weekend and the driving. We spent the night and on Tuesday made the trip to Dearborn, MI to visit the Henry Ford Museum. I admit I was a little, “oh gezz we gonna see a bunch of cars and technical stuff”, but alas I was dead wrong. The Museum was EXCELLENT, a mini Smithsonian if you will, very Americana with plenty of cars, history, roadside attractions and more. We had a delicious lunch of Michigan specialties and hit the road in mid afternoon. We arrived in Mercer, PA by dark and relaxed a bit.
Up early for the last leg home. We had nine areas of construction on RT. 80 to drive thru. The weather was ok, the drive although easy was still hard with the narrow construction lanes. We made a quick stop at the outlets and I backed into the driveway a little after 6PM. We had driven almost 3000 miles in a little more than a week. Can you say road trip?

I am now packed and ready for Newport, RI. It is possible that Earl may attend the festival on Friday during our setup. Should be fun since we are in a “tent building”. I already told Dennis, our traditional Friday evening ocean cruise is out this year, too bumpy for me.

Along with Newport, Kristin is traveling to Bennington, VT for the first Bennington Irish Music Festival on Saturday and Sunday. She lived in Bennington for seven years and knows everyone. This will be a fun weekend for her and her friends.

Well folks, that’s all for now. I am off to prepare Kristin’s stock for packing and finish up my Newport stock. We hope to be very busy this weekend. Stay safe if we get the wind and rain, and as always, safe journey my friends, see you down the road. sbb

Allison and I are here in Milwaukee, we are set up and the festival started last night with a 5 hour beginning. Our booth is 10×12 which is just right for us. We decorated it and it looks inviting to our customers. We are in a hard ground, building type structure with a very high roof. The sides are all open. I spent a lot of time on the ladder, hanging tarps for night, little tees and more. A lot of my festival friends are here and it is great to visit with all. Allison gave me a 5 minute talk time per vender yesterday, because we had lots to do.

The Festival is divided into 4 sections or nights based on Irish tradition, the first is opening, then Friday is the “Gathering”, where people come from all over to spend the weekend, Saturday is the BIG day called “Celebration”, the top acts, plays, sport events and more, and Sunday starting with a Mass for Peace & Justice, and ending with fireworks. The end of the last day is called the “Scathering”. It is all pretty cool. If you bring school supplies for Hope House on Thursday night, you get in free, On Friday the first hour and half is free admission, Sunday donations to the food pantry before Mass gets you free admission. I just love how the festival is so connected to the community.

The evening’s music started on the Miller Lite stage with a fantastic group of young ladies from Pearl River, NY. They just really started the circuit this year a little, I saw them at a couple of festivals this year…. well, they brought the house down at 5 in the afternoon on a Thursday, and to be sure we will hear from them again. Their last set even had the great Joanie Madden from Cherish The Ladies running up on stage to join them, a great honor for both! The evening ended with the dramatic entrance of the kilted (Gosh, there is nothing better than a buff guy in a kilt) RED HOT CHILLIE PIPERS.. The crowd was massive and roaring their approval of great music. In between, the festival has put together groups that have entertained over the past 30 years, this will be a festival to remember.

Our campground is about 1/2 hour a way, a bit of a pain, but quiet, clean and ours. We will be going in early today for a lunch hosted by the festival, for all the venders, a thank you to us for our years of being at the festival. From there Allison and I will relax along the shore of Lake Michigan until it’s time to work. We go to midnight tonight. That’s all for now.. the is a good chance you wont get a post from me until after the festival, we will be working 10 to midnight tomorrow and 9 to 2 am on Sunday. Safe Journey my friends and see you down the road. sbb

Now you see it, now you don’t, refers to my packed car. I swore last year I would never put myself in a position of too much inventory. When I think back on my years of festivals, I have never run low or out of stock on anything, so you think I would learn. But alas no, so…poor Allison, my traveling partner this trip had to sit pratically holding stuff for over 1000 miles.

We made it to Caladonia, WI supper time yesterday, after the car pulled itself off Rt. 80 in Shipshewanna, IN. Don’t know how that happens, but I just have to follow along for a couple of hours.. Yoder’s Dry Goods, E & S Bulk Foods, 5 & 20 Lunch stop, and a lovely ride thru Amish Farmland. I guess you can say it is tradition. As most know I am quilter and to go to a shop with a huge fabric department is wonderful. I find a sense of calm as I touch and run my hand across the bolts of colors, all the while quickly calculating what design I can make with the choice at hand. This stop I did not buy any, but there is always the ride home.

We leave at 9am today to go to the venue and setup. It will take hours to setup, not only does the display have to look nice and be appealing for sales, but the stock has to be easy to get to and in order. We are far too busy to be fumbling around looking for a stock box. We had been predicted for rain part of the time, but I heard last night that changed a bit to showers.

I have included a photo of the factory in Indiana where Ronan was manufactured. This area had been hit hard during our ongoing recession, but today even though some companies went out of business, there are still plenty of boats, campers, RV etc being produced in the area. Allison was kind enough to do a driveby photo of the plant as I slowly went along Rt. 80. Speaking of Allison, we are having a delightful trip. She is a highschool history teacher in NYC and really very interesting. She easily explains a lot of world news and history I really could not understand. Because she is a teacher, she tells me in a nice way, so I get it. Maybe I will have her tackle Irish History for the ride home. Her world travels makes her even more fun to hear from since she have visited so many cool places.

Well off to add the photos now, and get some breakfast. I am excited to start my day and build our display. Safe journey my friends and see you down the road. sbb

I just shut the back hatch of the suburban. I am officially packed, ready for Milwaukee, the largest Irish Festival in the world. I made a promise to myself last year to not bring as much stock… and of course I brought even more this year. My car holds stock and display fixtures. Everything has its own place and if I mess that up, I do not have enough room for everything. There is no room for era.

Dennis and I drove home on Monday from Dublin, Ohio. We drove about 553 miles, with five construction areas in PA. I kept offering to drive, but Dennis insisted he drive almost the whole way. As it turns out he saved me to drive the last 20 feet! Backwards, that is, into our driveway, backing up the trailer. It was late and pitch black out, but we did it on the first try. I felt pretty good about that.

Now Allison and I are off to Milwaukee, about a thousand miles, back across PA for the third time in six weeks and back across Ohio, Indiana, IL and on up to Wisconsin. I love this festival and feel very honored to be able to be a part. It is just so well done, so big, so complete. I really urge anyone who wants a nice vacation to got to this festival. I will write from the road, but you won’t hear from me during the festival. The hours are so long and hard, we will only be getting about four hours sleep a night. See you down the road my friends, safe journey. sbb

To spoof a well-known Irish ditty, ” we’re on the long road, mostly the wrong road to only God’s knows where…” Dennis and I began our Denville to Dublin road trip about noon yesterday. 465 miles later we arrived at Amish Country Campground about 9:30 PM. I like to think we are trendy grandparents, heck I travel with a netbook, gps and my handy-dandy crackberry. Well, Holmes County, Ohio is not the NJ metropolitan area, try typing the following address into your GPS and let me know what you get…”We are located 1/4 mile north of Winesburg, on Rt. 62″. My touchy GPS does not like anything remotely vague and that was a very vague address at best. So…by the handy light of my crackberry, I was able to guide my driver, Dennis into a very nice, quiet small campground, in the dark. (BTW, not recommended) I thankfully arranged for a pull thru, so we did not have the ongoing trauma of backing Ronan up

We spent the day mapless and gave the GPS the day off. Ok, we may have had to turn around a few times and we think we made a couple of loops, but it was a day to relax and follow the blue routes, the roads less travels, you know all the clichés. Of course I didn’t realize that included a couple of gravel roads..remember them, really kept people from speeding around. They should think of bringing them back.

Tomorrow we head to Alum Cree k State Park, for five nights. It is of course sultry out here, what else is new. Thursday, the games begin, early up, out to venue, set up, back to Ronan to relax and prepare for the weekend. Take care my friends, I will try to update you during the festival, but if not, I have over 700 miles to relax and update you on my way home. Safe journey and see you down the road. sbb

I almost forgot the best part of the festival. I was leaving last night, it was 85*, it had been brutally hot all day, no breeze, really tough. My car was parked by the traditional music tent and there was a Ceili going on. A Ceili is a group of people dancing the traditional dance of Ireland.. think step dancing meets square dancing, sprinkled with clogging. A group of five or six musicians play the tunes. There were about 60 people crowded into a tent, on and off the wooden dance floor they went having the time of their lives. To them the heat was nothing as they danced the dances of Ireland, Waltzing around and around, couples, singles, sisters, families and dear friends. It was that moment that I realized that although selling my goods, having a beer, and listening to the big Irish bands was fun, the tradition of these dancers, the fun, laughter, encouragement of each other was really what the festival was about, keeping the tradition alive. They do not have huge amounts of opportunity to get together and dance the steps of old Ireland. It was a beautiful sight to see on a warm Summer evening, in a tent, in a field, in Glastonbury Ct. I loved watching them enjoy each other. Now that’s a festival. Safe journey my friends and see you down the road. Safe home. sbb

I am writing to you from my little dinette inside Ronan on a beautiful Summer morning. everyone in CT this weekend has just experienced a terrible bout of heat and humidity. Somehow a front forced thru and this early AM there is a beautiful breeze gently moving trees, grass, curtains and me.
Aside from the heat, Glastonbury is a wonderful Festival to attend. The music is great. It is pretty far from us, but the sound system brings it closer without us having to shout to our customers. The hard-working volunteers are directing traffic, cooking ver hot grills and corn pots and collecting admissions. I recognize and greet returning customers, commenting on how big their children are growing. I added a very simple thought this year for all the festivals… I give all the little kids who come into the booth a shamrock sticker. They are all so excited and promptly put them on. They are also a polite group in that they all offer me a quiet little thank you. They are lucky kids, when I was little the only stickers I got were off the Chiquita bananas in the grocery store!

We are open noon to six today, then time to pack it all up for the next time. Ronan and I are heading out on Monday morning. We have a very special stop to make on the way home. July 16, 2010, Chloe and Christian Banks were born to Jennifer and Patrick, our oldest son. We are going to visit and show Chloe are Ronan. I have her little camping space all ready to go for when she is a bit older. That’s all for now my friends, have a lovely day and see you down the road, safe journey. sbb

We had a very warm weekend in Chicago, the people were fantastic, met lots of nice new customers, some from our Milwaukee and Dublin Festivals. We even met a few from New Jersey. A funny part of the weekend is that everyone thought WE had accents, as if that is not bad enough, they thought we had NEW YORK accents, hah, we are Jersey Girls.

Our Hanna Hats were a good seller as were our kids tee shirts and all the Wee One infant clothes. We made a really nice display because we actually had a lot more than our usual 10×10 foot space. The only sticky wickett was the huge storms at the end of the night, I admit I might have jumped a few times. We were able to pull the car, tulles and all into the tent to pack up without getting eveything wet.

We hit the road 7:30 am and drove almost 500 miles to Mercer, PA. I am sitting out at the picnic table writing to you. From here home tomorrow, another 300 miles, for a little more than a week, next up is Glastonbury, CT.

Eileen Ivers was the headliner last night and she kept up her fiddle duel with the storm. Mark your calenders for this festival next year. If you get to Chicago in the mean time, stop into the Irish Heritage Center with its beautiful museum, library, theater, event room, classrooms and of course a couple of bars. It is one of the largest Irish Centers around. see you down the road.. sbb