As I wrote in Friday’s blog, when we were here in Long Beach a couple of years ago we toured the World Kite Museum with Greg and Jan White and I bought a G-Kites Delta Conyne kite, then stuck it in the closet and forgot all about it until we were at the kite festival this week. Yesterday afternoon we walked out to the beach near the Thousand Trails preserve to see if I could get it off the ground.
There were only a few other kites flying and we walked a short distance away to keep from tangling lines with them, and because I didn’t want any witnesses to my folly if things turned out the way they usually do for me. A couple of miles further up the beach at the kite festival the sky was busy. Here are a couple of pictures Terry took using the zoom capability of her Canon SX40
As soon as I took it out of its case I was impressed with the kite. It’s huge, eight feet wide and 3½ feet tall, and all I had to do was slip the cross spar into its pockets on each side, hook the line to the bridle, and it was ready to fly.
In fact, it wants to fly. There was a nice breeze blowing and Terry held it as I let out a few feet of line. Then she let go and it was flying. I tugged on the line a few times to help it gain altitude and let more line out and before long it was floating high overhead. And I didn’t even crash!
Just to be sure I wasn’t getting into too much trouble, the Beach Patrol came crashing through the surf to save any women and children within harm’s way.
When my author friend Shirley Bourget heard that I was going to fly a kite, she had to create a cartoon to honor the occasion. Click on the picture to enlarge it and read the news about how Shirley saw my “tragic death; strangled by a kite string.” Those two characters discussing the accident are “noids” because another author friend, Saxon Andrew, claims that all writers are paranoid and we carry them around with us. If our books aren’t selling it’s because everyone hates us, and if they are, we know that no matter how well things are going, it won’t last.
Today is the last day of the kite festival, and we’ll probably wander downtown to check it out one last time. And the other day Terry set a pizza dough to rest and raise in the refrigerator, and it should be just about perfect for dinner tonight. Yummy!
Thought For The Day – Sometimes I laugh so hard the tears run down my legs.
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I love it. . .all of it. . .what a fun day!
We have “his and hers” kites for the beach — I bought Leeanne hers for our anniversary this year. Yours is way too fancy for me; got mine at Harbor Freight.
Your kite would look great with a 30′ red white & blue tail or spinner, you auta be able to make today,last day and all. Did you make contact w/the america kite asso. guy?
Cartoon was very funny. How about Ms Terry’s pizza dough recipe? We would all like to try some yummy pizza!
Looks like u and Dan Chance are in the same spot have him tie the phone to your high flying kit one of u guys might get out
joy the wind