Look .. Up In The Air ...........

It's a bird!  It's a plane!!  No ... it's KITES of every shape and variety you can imagine!!  It couldn't have been a more perfect day for the start of the Washington State International Kite Festival, known to be one of the largest in the world!!  Entry is free to anyone who wants to walk to the beach and I promise you won't regret stopping in.

The kites flying here are hundreds of feet long and as many feet in the air, to the squealing delight of the kids running around pointing to the sky.  

There were frogs, turtles and all manner of creatures floating lazily in the breeze.  This area is for big kites that are staked to the ground.

It's pretty amazing to see the inventiveness of this sport.  The days of the little triangle kite have been surpassed by huge creations.  Don't worry, you will see lots of little triangle kites being flown out here too.  

The variety is just amazing and the colors fantastic!!  I could sit in a chair and watch them moving with the wind for hours.  Check out the octopus!!  He's so big I had to turn my camera to get him in the frame.  It's a ballet in the sky!

Okay, I admit a lot of those squeals of delight were coming from my mouth!!  These are trains and arches ... kites made of hundreds of small kites attached to line and flown across the sky to make a train, or attached to the ground at both ends to make an arch.  One had six strings covered with over one thousand kites, all handmade I understand.  

It's also amazing that none of these seem to get tangled up as they change direction according to the winds.  

I stopped in at the registration desk to get my photography pass and a program so I won't miss any of the competitions, including Rokkaku kite fighting, the handcrafted competition and a lollipop drop!!  Yeah I know, that one's for the kids, but it will be a kick to watch!!

Down in the Rev section, blocked off just for Revolution kite flyers, was the group we have become acquainted with.  Six men had their Revs up, making patterns in the sky and playing follow the leader.  

Then one more was added to the mix .... SEVEN!!

Ever wonder how they don't get their lines tangled??  Well they DO, and this is what it looks like.  It's just mind boggling how in the end, they follow the directions of the caller and backtrack the pattern until everyone is untangled! 

You can tell they are pretty intense when flying .... if you look away for one second, your kite goes off another direction ... mine hits the ground!!!

Just imagine the skill it takes to fly one four-line kite, this guy flies SEVEN!!  To make me feel even worse, many of these people are so skilled they fly one-handed, doing twists, turns and dives, stopping inches above the sand.  I'm just happy to get mine in the air!!

Back at the rig, with another couple pounds of sand in my shoes ... the pile outside my door is almost big enough for sand sculptures ... Miss Terry, Nick and I exchanged tips we had learned while my ice cream maker churned away much longer than it should have.  Now THAT's amazing ... kites have become more important than ICE CREAM!!