Gypsies In A Caravan: Greeley Irish Festival, NE

Heading north on 281 we encounter beautiful rolling hills and country side for 50 miles. As we turn off into the town we are greeted with this sign.

The sign is not lying, there are 562 people in this town. From the moment we enter this town the folks were very friendly. We were lucky to get a spot with electric so we arrive around 2pm and get settled into our site. Gypsy camp is set up outside of the football field with a big generator.

This is the view out of my dinning room window, hey not everybody has protection like this.

The fellow that was operating the set up was real nice and gave us the scoop on what was happening for the weekend. When asking where was a good place to eat as we hadn't had lunch he told us the only place in town was Frogger's. So off we go to Frogger's...

Our plan is to eat then go to the store for a few supplies and get some cash back for the weekend...well that wasn't a good plan.

Driving though town (2 blocks) we came across this wonderful seen.

Love one another.

The kitchen was closed and won't open again to 6 but the beer was cold and the peanuts tasty. After a cold beer we headed over to the only grocery store in town to discover that they didn't give cash back on purchases, OK that's a problem. We enter one of the two banks in town, walk up to the teller and announce that we aren't from around here. She begins to laugh and stated "Oh yes I know you are not from around here". When there is only 562 people in town I guess it was obvious. This lovely woman said she would cash a check for us, we were stunned as that probably won't happen anywhere else.

Lesson learned---always have cash on hand as you may never know where you will end up.

Headed back to Gypsy camp as we wait for the huge generator to crank up we start talking with some folks that have just arrived, almost everybody knows everyone and it is a reunion of sorts. After everyone has power the talk turns to...are you going down to Frogger's for their good hamburgers and live band? Of course we are. Table selected, beer and burgers ordered, in come the people. Barbara and Jerry Dunning sit with us and soon we are introduced to almost everyone. Jerry's family is from Greeley and this is the place to be. The local band gets cranked up and soon everyone is tapping their feet and having a good time.

In comes this cool gentleman and he sits at our table. We get introduced by Jerry & Barb and it is Jerry's uncle, they call him Grandpa.

Jerry, Grandpa & Barbara

Barbara tells me that Grandma wasn't doing so good so they moved her into an assisted living facility and Grandpa was lonely so he sold his house to the son and moved in with Grandma. The home is right in town so on the weekends Grandpa comes down to Frogger's for just a couple of Highballs, this weekend the count was off. As the bar filled lots of folks came over saying "Hi" and Jerry & Barbara were gracious to introduce us to them all, we felt very welcome. Thank you!

                                           Even this little fellow even came out for the festivities.

                                   A good time was had by all and the festival hadn't even started.

                                                            The Day of the Irish Festival

We woke up to a cloudy day with rain on and off. The bands started up at noon and continued til 11pm.  They each did two sets with activities in between along with the Big Red Tent set up for the Corn Huskers game, football is big in Greeley. They even had a Corn hole tournament!

Despite the cool weather and misting rain lots of people came out to par take in Irish Stew, Soda Bread, dark beer and lots of other treats. We found a good spot, set up our chairs and enjoyed.