June 2002

I'm having a great time here, what a great group of people! The main festival started out good and the location is GREAT... Then the wind started kicking up! Here is the forecast that was on the TV this morning... I just had to take a picture of it. I had never seen a forecast quite like it!! What kite would you choose to set up?????

The Festival in Jamestown North Dakota was great fun and their festival spot was too good.. Big park flat nice grass no gofer holes and WAY more wind than any kiter could use! The collection of kites I brought was WRONG and I just kept breaking rods trying to do demos in that wind... Sure wish I'd brought a screen kite or an old rag kite! I didn't get a lot of kite shot this time but I did try to get most of the players! This little festival had more excellent kite builders than Iv seen collected in one place in awhile

Chris Dodson is one of the organizers of the festival and is an awesome utopia flyer and is great guy!

Mike Gee is the other guy responsible for this well organized festival. Mike too is a great guy as well as a one heck of a kite builder. On his right is Joanne Webber another of kiting's recognized kite builder! 

The wind was blowing so hard we bridled Joanne! Joanne is a  fun lover and I enjoyed meeting her.

Another Kite builder on hand for the event was Deb Lenzen, Deb is also a North Dakota resident......Deb is another fun lover and showed me around  North Dakota for four days!!

Sharon Musto came from Canada to play with us! Sharon is one of my favorite kiter's and is a great kite builder herself.

Jerry Houk from Minnesota yet another renowned kite builder attended, It was nice to get to know him better.

Yvan-Ming Hsu  (pronounced like WAN) Yvan also from Minnesota is a flier, collectors and importer of the coolest mechanical kites I've ever seen. .I was told Yvan is AKA's official Japanese interpreter .

Don Murphy of Nebraska was there too but the photo I took of him was lousy so I will find a better one and get it up here. Don has a truck load of gigantic kites , his 500 square foot flowform flew all day and took the winds just fine but it took 6 or 7 of us and all our might to bring that sucker down!! Don and his girlfriend Betty are two more of kitings "good folks"!

Super nice folk from Billings Montana, John and Diana Pollack. Johns art kites are truly astounding!

Don Jaspers (w/Sharon Musto) was also in attendance... Don calls himself the kite doctor, and is envied for winning the two 252 Sutton package from the AKA raffle last year. Sorry about the lousy photo Don, you left early Sunday so I couldn't take a better one!

Brad Kladges, Minnesota Kite flyer was there too. Brad is also editor of the Minnesota kite flyers society newsletter.

There were others but I failed to get pictures of everyone... Sorry to those I missed!

Here are a couple kite shots from the day.

John Ploacks kites. One air born and the other one of his hanging on the wall.

Big line toys, top one made by Chris Dodson and the center one by Mike Gee, The festival organizers.

After the festival they had a banquette held at a local teen center (I think). This place was perfect for the party. It was also used for a kite art display over the weekend ,decorated with fine art kites and enough room for a little indoor flying. As the evening wore on the disco lights and music grew louder and louder... These guys know how to party too!

One of Jerry Houk's genkis displayed kites.

This is one of the coolest kites I've seen in a while. It has a fan that wind blows on and the bamboo and wire gears and wheels make the claws move back and forth as well as open and close... even those little feelers on its head move. Hsu is importing this artists kites.

The next day dawned with rain... so we gathered at the "party room" and talked and did some more indoor flying till the rain stopped. Also lots of good byes to those that had to head out to their respective states...AND countries...eh Sharon, the fun meter did drop a bit when you left!

The rest of us headed out to the club flying field. Yep they have a club flying field!

It's too cool, their field has parking so I buried anchors strong enough to hold anything. The city even provided a set of bleachers for the spectators that gather every time they fly. Its also a pretty place to fly, its right across the street from the Jamestown damn.

A few Jamestown pictures. A typical "street" a view of "downtown".

After a fun afternoon of flying on their private field we headed over to Mike Gee's place for BBQ'd steak and more conversation... nice evening! After dinner we headed  to Garrison North Dakota , about a two hour drive... in foggy muggy windy conditions. When we arrived in Garrison the whole town looked like a disaster area with trees lying down, broken branches in the street and crap everywhere... it seems the wind was in the 70's both Saturday and Sunday... YES I said 70 miles an hour... GEEESE they get wind out there on the prairie!

Every one has seen trees laying down ,broken branches and messes made by the wind, but I just had to include this photo of a 30 foot ish sail boat blown off its trailer... this was an expensive mess!

If ya ever wondered where they keep the wind when its not being used any place else, it in North Dakota!

I had to take a photo of this drive thru liquor store! what a concept.... all I can get in a drive thru here in California is a lousy hamburger! Those huge grain silos (they have em WAY bigger out there) is a indication of the thousands of miles of agriculture they do out there on that prairie.

On Monday I looked around Garrison and had a chance to spend to spend two or three hours of flying in the Garrison high school gym....this was a good time as it was the first time I could bond with my new Lam Hoac indoor kite!  Hey I can do some of the stuff he does!!

Here I am doing a reverse launch to a rising fade. "Come to me baby ala Lam!"

AND look who else learned to do a rising fade, yeup Deb can do em now too... She is a counselor at the high school and her indoor skills show that she has access to a great place to practice!  The brat even lives across the street from a hardly used auditorium......and I  cant find any place to fly indoors here...I'm jealous!

I had a blast checking out North Dakota for the first time and flying with the kiter's there and Thank em all for being so good to me! And a special thanks to Deb Lenzen for arranging everything and taking such good care of me while I was there!

Squaw Valley USA: SquawCAM - High Camp - el. 8200'

We Arrived  at Squaw just before dark on Friday

The entrance to Squaw Valley. You can't see the Olympic flame but its there in that black caldron thingy. 

We checked into our hotel, a brand new one right across the court yard from the tram

Our way nice hotel, probably one of the nicest places I have ever stayed in... I kinda felt like I didn't belong there! AND hey look parked put in front is my new white kite bag!! Nathan and Mira Sendan walking away from camera. In the morning we strolled across the courtyard and met other kiters already gathering in front of the Tram building. And after getting info and arm bands we loaded tones of kites and coolers....a pile that says the kiting industry is doing just fine! and off we went.

This is the first thing ya see as the tram leaves the station... BUT that is NOT the top of the mountain by no means! Beyond that point is a huge gorgeous valley, I have no idea how far from the ground the tram was over that valley but it was HIGH! The tram travels over another peak like this one and on up to the 8200 foot high Camp... a very cool ride indeed.

Inside the crammed tram car, a huge car that took all our stuff and about 40 or 50 people... that looks like Arnold and Nannett Stellema, Nathan Sendan and Aarons back. We also rode up with the towels for the pool! Here is a shot at a rock formation looking out of the tram near the top. Typical terrain going up to the top!

At the top I was amazed at how much stuff was going on! There was a huge pool and poolside bar with zillions of people enjoying the water and sun. There was also a big ice skating arena, a large grassy area in front of a huge bandstand where live music was blasting from all weekend and added to the festive feel of the event. Beyond was our mountain top to fly where we wanted!

Looking out at beyond the meadow and part of the ridge that helped make the winds near impossible! The wind came over that ridge and blew to the right and then to the left and sometimes both ways at the same time!

Sister Sharon and Deb Lenzen from North Dakota sitting at the spot we chose to fly. The snow fence behind has strong pipe posts and held many kites. I chose this spot next to soft dirt volley ball courts... the only thing up there SOFT! most of the ground was littered with sharp rocks and low plants that snagged kite ling like crazy... even huge line for the big kites BUT what a beautiful place to play!

Dan Whitney was up and had his octopus up and down and up and down all weekend...UP and DOWN was the M.O. for flying, the wind would blow and everything would go up and look nice and then poof down they would come...The atmosphere is so thin up there that kites need way more wind that normal and when they dong get it they drop like rocks... even kites that you know float easily... straight down! Kites that you can usually keep in the air by reeling in line  or by slowly walking backwards... like rocks on the end or your line!! Then on the other hand it was easy to catch a thermal and have your kite straight over head and rising I had my 5 stack of rocks straight over head and taking all of the 500 feet of line I had, the line kind of just hanging loosely from the kite... that was very cool. NOT so cool was poor Deb from North Dakota lost her ying/yang award winner to the thermals.

Deb's della porta just before it left the state on a thermal. That kite after it got cut loose rose higher and higher and rode a thermal over that mountain range you can see in the distance in this photo...no guess how far but I'm guessing 40/50 miles, it was still rising as it cleared the highest peak of that ridge and went out of site, truly a sad and magical flight on its way to the wind gods!

There were several other kites lost and nearly lost, Nathan lost his favorite large rok to a pine tree and Dan cut his one Octopus loose with another kite! That was quite a scramble as that big green octopus headed for the cliff a near shear drop off to the valley floor... an area that looks from the top to be inaccessible to humans... a goat maybe!

You can see the Octo rescue squad carrying it back from the brink of disaster... Jim Strealy caught it by one tentacle just as it reached the cliff.... I think Danny Boy should buy Jim a beer!

Those paths and trails were busy with hikers all day long as hundreds of people came up to hike in the mountains, most seemed to enjoy the kite show... others seemed oblivious... funny!

All in all we had a ball, worked our butts off to keep kites flying... in this spectacular location!

 There were only two negatives to the weekend, one ego maniac butt head high camp employee that they need to loose, and all my kites got FILTHY dirty, spent Monday resting up and washing kites in the driveway

I washed em in a garbage can with zip car wash soap. That bucket of water was muddy with the dirt!

My crown and pyro drying in the sun. It was 92° to 94° degrees so they dried fast!

Two hundred feet of clean tails drying in the sun! I don't know what material they are made of but they picked up the dirt the worst, they were brown when I got home!

There was about 25 of us kiter's up there and even thou it isn't great wind up there. I'm betting not a one of us will miss it next year!

Here is a link to Dan's photos, he got a ton of em, even some of me!!

         

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This page was last updated March 14, 2003 01:45 AM