This was the second day of the Northwest Folklife Festival (although the first day for us).

We woke up around 8am and got in gear around 9am. Quite a record for us.

Outside the hotel we found it was kind of chilly. Ginny assured me that it would get warmer soon enough.

We wandered over to the Seattle Center only to find that Folk Life didn’t start until 11am.

Oh well, we had some time to kill. Asked a few of the vendors if they were serving coffee yet, but none were.

We people watched for a while and one of the vendors actually tracked us down and asked if we still wanted coffee, because she was starting a pot. SOLD!

After folk life actually started up, we checked out some of the acts. We watched the Morris Dancers a bit, checked out some of the crafts vendors,

The weather got a bit warm, almost hot, and both Ginny and I were beginning to feel it. We decided to take a short siesta and come back later in the afternoon.

After a short nap we went back. Saw some more acts. We made a point to stop at the Northwest Court stage to listen to the sea shanties. As an added bonus, they were next to the beer garden, so both Ginny and I had a drink.

We listened to the Celtic music, which was pretty darn good. Some of the audience members started dancing. Two of the dancers stood out… there was a young girl, probably 13 or so, who was obviously a trained ballet dancer. She was quite good. The other person who stood out was this guy who obviously loved the music and was dancing a rather good Irish jig.

Around 7pm we decided to head back to the hotel. Kind of early, but we were both tired.

Along the way back, we passed by McMenamins on Roy street. When we looked in the window, we saw three or four musicians from Folk Life sitting in the corner booth playing their instruments. I looked at Ginny and asked “Time for one beer? She readily agreed.

We went in, grabbed some seats at the bar, and had some really tasty beer and listen to the musicians. It was fantastic. Ended up having four beers (barman kept asking us if we wanted to start a tab, but we always responded “No, this is the last one . It became a bit of a joke between us.

By the time we left there were about 50 musicians in the bar, all playing and singing. It was incredible.