Today we drove from Westport south along the coast to Long Beach (we were there a couple of weeks ago too), It is 37 miles to Long Beach as the crow flies, but 78 miles on the road. It was a nearly two-hour drive, but turned out to be worth it! We went there to visit the Washington State International Kite Festival.
We arrived at Long Beach and, after deciding that all of the action was on the beach, parked in the vicinity of the Lightship Restaurant where we had eaten on our last visit. As soon as we got near to the beach we saw a display of large kites flying over the sand. It would turn out that the large kites were just the beginning.
We walked a half mile north along the beach to the center of activity. There were kites and kite pilots all along the beach and they got thicker as we neared the tents that were headquarters for the festival. We picked up a program and managed to figure out what was going on. These folks were not amateurs. There were competitions scheduled for the full week of the festival. We would have a chance only to sample some of it.
The weather on the drive down had been cloudy and foggy with some light rain. Upon our arrival at Long Beach the clouds lingered and there was a light breeze. It was time for lunch so we found a spot on the boardwalk overlooking the competition fields (sandy beach spaces) and enjoyed the non-competitive flying that was going on at the time. One of the most interesting displays was a "train" of about 250 small kites that was flying from the boardwalk high into the sky.
When we had finished lunch we headed east along the midway where there were lots of small booths with food and other goodies. We went to the center of town to Scoopers, the ice cream palace of Long Beach. We took the time to get a couple of cones and visited with some of the other folks and then headed back down the midway to the action. The good news was that the sun had come out and it was a beautiful breezy afternoon!
We found a spot on a sand dune, Arnie dug himself and nest, and we settled in. The first event was a group flight of Revolution kites. The Revolution is a "quad" kite attached by four kite strings and is very maneuverable. There were more than 50 Revolutions flown by nine groups of pilots. After all of the kites were airborne the pilots, under the direction of a leader, put them through some impressive maneuvers in unison. It was impressive!
The action continued with a couple of competitions. The first featured more Revolutions as pairs of pilots paired their kites in a sky dance done to prearranged music. Their skill was impressive and the presentations were artistic. The second competition, called the mystery ballet, was a singles competition where each contestant danced his or her kite to music that was a secret until the dance started. Once again we were impressed.
We could have watched more, but it was time to head for the car and the trip back to the See Ya. But as we walked the beach back toward the car we came across Ray Bethell. this guy was something else! He is somewhere near 80 years of age (actual age a secret) and is an expert on flying multiple kites at the same time. As we were passing he was putting three of them through there paces. We stopped!
He was flying one kite with his left hand, one with his right, and a third with his hips! You have to see this to believe it.
Well, Ray put the icing on the cake. The Kite Festival had been more than worth the trip. We heade north in the Escape, stopped for dinner at Bennett's in Grayland (a really good reasonably priced one) and returned to the See Ya as happy campers.
