South Padre Kite Festival

We went with our friends, the Al and Miriam and Donna and Richard, to the South Padre Kite Festival today. We have enjoyed going for years now and were really sad to hear the announcement that this will be the last time B&S Kites will sponsor the event. Then to make matters worse, IQuad (team flyers that we love) are also going to take hiatus for awhile. We saw them the first time in Oregon at the Kite Festival at Lincoln City in October of 2007. That was when we were first introduced to the team flying or any synchronized kite flying to music. We keep hoping that the Chamber will decide to sponsor the event in the future but, if not, we'll have to get back to Oregon and enjoy a festival there. We want to get back that direction anyway!

The festival this year looked to be a great success. There were loads of people in attendance. We managed to get really good seats this year though and so were able to get some awesome pictures and videos.

All sizes and shapes of stationary kites

End of the Line (EOL) Flyers

Me, Al, Miriam, Donna and Richard

Al, Miriam, Donna and Richard

Some of the Crowd

Chuck and Sandy Trimpe

Sandy, Donna and Wilbur Jacobs

Mary Hazlett talking to Sandy

This guy flies two kites at once - one from his belt

That's Us!

The Owner of B&S Kite Store After His Routine

IQuad Circle of Kites

IQuad Kissing Kites - There are 6 of them up there!

IQuad

Us again!

Our Winter Ranch Bus Driver - Jack

That's Big Blue - he will be painted over the summer!

Winter Ranch had a bus scheduled to come to the Kite Festival but it also went to some other event first.  By the time it got here, there wasn't room in the parking lot for them.  They ended up parked behind a sand dune.  

That's most of the Winter Ranchers that came on the bus!

Apparently, they didn't want to walk down to where the action is but all they could see from their vantage point was the stationery kites.