Friday, September 23 through Sunday, September 25, 2022- Bethlehem Celtic Festival

     Last spring when we saw Scott's college friends, Tricia said we should get together at her place in Bethlehem, PA, for the Celtic Festival weekend.  We had all been there once before in 2016, and both Scotts thought it would be fun.  Julie had thought that we could get a hotel like we did then, and have a place for Abby to take a nap and have a swim during the day, but that didn't work because all the nearby hotels were booked.   Scott and Dawn ended up having other plans, but our Scott (Scott F.) still wanted to go and Julie thought he should.

     Scott took a personal day off on Friday so that he would be safe driving down.  He had an appointment to pick up his bifocals at the optometrist and planned to leave after that.  He hoped to stop in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, to tour the Old Jail and see the handprint of the Molly McGuire that refuses to fade away and that Matt told about whenever Rush the Growler sang "Sons of Molly."  He got started too late though and ended up driving through to Tricia's place.

     Tricia's got a really nice house, which was not a surprise.  Scott got his stuff unpacked from the car and put it all on one of the twin beds in the guest room where he would be sleeping.  One of Tricia's friends was there, and we went out to dinner to a place called "Blue."  We met a few more of Tricia's friends there too.  All totaled there were five of us at dinner- Scott, Tricia, Tricia's friend Dawn and her husband, and another colleague of Tricia's from work.  We went to Dawn and Joe's house after dinner to play cards and played "President" until midnight.  Scott took a while to catch on, and was still missing a lot of subtleties of the game, but ended up doing pretty well by the end of the night.

     On Saturday morning, Scott got up, showered and put on his kilt to wear to the festival.  He had ordered it when we were here back in 2016.  We tried to get to the festival in time to see the parade, but Tricia had trouble coaching the Uber driver on how to get there.  By the time we arrived the parade was over.  First we went to the Fegley's Bethlehem Brew Works and had a beer and some pretzels as a light lunch.  When we were here in 2016, Tricia had laughed at Scott's attempt to get a sticker, to add to his collection from breweries he's been to.  Scott was pleased that they actually had some this time.  We then went down the hill to the festival, got our bearings and bought our beer tokens.  Then we went to hear Gerry Timlin play in one of the smaller tents.  Tricia wasn't impressed with his choice of music and thought his songs were a little childish sounding, but Scott bought two CDs from him.  We went back to the bigger stage and watched Emish, a trio made up of a guy and two women.

     While Emish was playing, a woman who had had a bit to drink came over and sat down beside us.  She was friendly, and started talking to us.  In the course of the conversation, she started talking about the Philadelphia Eagles.  Scott raised a glass and started to toast the Eagles.  Tricia, a Giants fan, took offense to that, so Scott tried toasting the Giants too.  Neither of the women liked that and said he couldn't toast both.  So Scott tried the toast, "To anybody but Buffalo!"  The woman across from him asked, "Does Buffalo have a team?" and Scott immediately put his hands in the air and yelled, "I'm in heaven!"  

     After Emish, we saw a bit of a group called the Mudmen, but then decided to look for dinner.  Scott got some t-shirts for Julie, Anna and Emma, and one for himself.  We stopped at the Moravian Bookstore, where he bought a popup book for Abby, and we continued up the hill to one of Tricia's favorite places to eat- the Hotel Bethlehem.  It was still relatively early when we left there, but we decided to leave the festival behind and take an Uber back to Tricia's place.  Scott and Tricia spent the rest of the evening there, listening to Irish music.  Scott had brought his mandolin and banjo, and Tricia was playing selections on Alexa.  We did have to play "American Pie" once to show it was, in fact, a sing-along song, contrary to what other people had said.  We ended up watching some YouTube of the Social Lites and Rush the Growler too.  

     On Sunday morning, Tricia insisted that Scott had to watch the first thirty minutes or so of the movie, The Hangover, before he left.  She had listed it as one of her favorite comedies when we were making lists the night before, and was shocked that Scott had said he had never seen it.  Scott left about 10:30.  He had wondered if maybe it would be possible to stop in Jim Thorpe on the way home, but it will have to wait for another trip down because the museum wasn't open until later.  Hopefully, he'll head down again soon, with Julie and Abby along, and maybe with Scott and Dawn showing up too.