Meekerpalooza: An Arts, Crafts, Food and Music Success | The Herald Times | Serving Meeker, Rangely, Dinosaur & Northwest Colorado

Using ropes along with a soap and water solution, the kids kept the bubble-blowing area busy all afternoon Saturday, sending small and large bubbles flying all over the Meekerpalooza grounds at Ute Park. It turned out to be one of the more-popular activities at the event, and it seemed that the younger bubble-blowers had better luck than their older counterparts.

Bobby Gutierrez of Cuppa Joe in Meeker was one of many food vendors feeding the several hundred people attending Meekerpalooza on Saturday. Gutierrez was offering hot dogs and burgers while some of the other foods on hand were red Thai curry, Mexican food, Korean barbecue, lamb, snow cones, kettle corn, carne asada, barbecued ribs, pecan cakes and curried beef.

While Meeker band The Cloverloafers were busy playing a wide variety of music, including country and bluegrass, this group of Meekerites thought the time was opportune to try their hand at “Cotton-Eyed Joe,” a long-time favorite country dance step. Throughout the day with a wide variety of music, dancers often emerged to try some dancing—with several varieties and forms as well.

It took less than nine minutes for Meeker’s Eddie Langford to braid an entire horse halter out of nylon rope in darned near any color a horse owner would want. Several area ranchers took advantage of Langford’s talents to procure a unique halter or custom-made harness during Meekerpalooza at Ute Park.

This young lady is one of the hundreds of kids who passed through the Kids’ Art Zone as part of Meekerpalooza on Saturday. Besides her butterfly painting, many other objects were painted with the water colors, there was stone painting and building of dioramas out of wood and bark to keep the children (and a few adults) occupied.

Reds, greens, blues, yellows and oranges were all over rocks being painted by the children in the Meekerpalooza’s Kids’ Art Zone on Saturday, and several of those children also turned themselves those various colors. Water painting and diorama making and a variety of other pasttimes were on hand for the Meeker Arts and Cultural Council-sponsored Meekerpalooza, and several hundred people turned out despite the overcast and blustery day.

Los Venados, a Meeker group whose members are from Oaxaca, Mexico, entertained a large crowd of stalwart mariachi fans on Saturday at Meekerpalooza, held at Ute Park, just west of the Meeker town limits. The members of the band are employees at The Mexican House or Meeker Cafe.

Sena Zellers, right, helps some younger children with their construction of dioramas on Saturday during Meekerpalooza at Meeker’s Ute Park. The round slabs of wood served as the floor, tree bark served as the walls while various decorations and creations such as the pine cones could be displayed inside the dioramas, which serve as mini stages.

Members of the Meeker VFW Post and the Meeker VFW Ladies Auxiliary help kick off Meekerpalooza activities at Ute Park on Saturday afternoon. The day of activities included races, games, food, music, painting in the Kids’ Art Zone and ended with a show of fireworks at 10 p.m. The 2015 Meekerpalooza was put on by the Meeker Arts and Cultural Council as a way to show off the fun and arts available in the Meeker area.

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