The weather man was wrong and the weather was just about perfect for kite flying and it stayed nice right up until the time we decided to head home. Then we had rain but we had a perfect day! We both packed our lunches and ate while we watched the show.
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| That's us! |
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| Miriam and Al Hight |
A bunch of our friends from Winter Ranch took the bus over but we decided that we should go on our own because the bus gets there late and doesn't ever stay as long as we want. We also wanted to go over to the Gulf side of the island after the festival was over. The crowd today was something else. I think the kite festival has caught on in the past couple of years because there were a lot more people here than we've seen in the past. At first we thought we would be so far back that we wouldn't see anything, however, we sent Lee out scouting and then found seats that were almost front row.
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| Colorful Frog |
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| Octopus |
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| Some of the Crowd |
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| Not One Of Our Winter Ranch Friends! |
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| Never Saw The Puffer In The Sky |
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| The Large Wheel Got Up Though |
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| Fishie Kites |
The I-Quad team from Washington State was here again and we love to watch them fly. They also had two other team flyers, a local group called Team SPI (South Padre Island) and another team called End of the Line or (EOL). Then were were many solo fliers. One time SPI and I-Quad got together and did an impromptu presentation. It was exceptional seeing as they didn't even practice ahead of time!
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| SPI-Quad |
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| SPI-Quad Kites During Demonstration |
After lunch, Lee and I went hunting for the rest of the Winter Ranch people that came on the bus. We found two groups of friends that had moved in to see the show. They had been to the kite festival before and knew what they would be missing.
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| Winter Ranch Friends - Sharon, Donna and Richard |
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| More WR Friends - Donna, Mary, Sandy and Wilbur |
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| Cheryl and Tom Brockman, SOITC friends that sat behind us today! |
The rest of the people were all sitting with the bus and they weren't even near the kite demonstrations. We talked to a few of them and told them they should get up and move but they were staying by the bus because they didn't want to get wet when the big storm started. We don't know if any of them moved, but from where they were sitting all they could see was the kites that are tied down that just float on the wind currents. If that is all they saw, they probably won't have much to say about the festival so we hope they moved! The sky did look threatening for awhile, but as the day progressed the clouds sort of flew over. I think we had four drops of rain while the demos were going on.
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| Our Bus and People Sitting Close To It In Case It Rained |
After we left the Kite Festival, we drove over to the beaches on the Gulf Side of the island. Miriam went shell hunting and Lee and I tried to get our kites going. He was able to get his stunt kite going and the wind was good so he kept it in the air pretty well. My dragon kite was another story. It just didn't want to fly today. It has been so long since we had it out, I think we were tying it wrong. While we were there a large group of people on horseback came down the dunes and trotted across the beach. When they were leaving they were on the dunes above the parking lot. Some jerk decided to turn his music up to fire alarm status and scared the horses. A lot of them started bucking and running into each other. The leader of the group came galloping down the dune and yelled at the guy in the car who was dumb enough to have left his door open. She told him that was an asshole thing to do and to shut that music off now. He did and as she was passing by his car, her horse got a few kicks in here and there! Can't say as we blamed her because some of those kids she was in charge of could have been seriously hurt!
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| Horses on Beach #4 on the Gulf Side |
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| Lee Trying to Knot My Dragon Kite |
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| Lee Flying His Stunt Kite |
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| Miriam Gathering Shells |
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| Western Sandpiper |
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| California Gull on Vacation |
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| Lee Flying His Stunt Kite - Al Watching |
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| Al & Mariam Starting Into Shrimp Haus |
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| Walking Toward The Shrimp Haus |
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| They must get a lot of business during Spring Break! |
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| Finally to the Building - Now To The Elevator |
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| We've Arrived in the Lobby |
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| Miriam and Lee |
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| Al taking care of his check |
After dinner, we headed on home. It started raining just about the time we got to the truck and it rained on and off all the way back to Winter Ranch. It kept raining all night long and by morning the temperature had dropped to the mid-50's. Can't wait for it to warm up again!
