The View From My Porch

Kite Festival

It is warm and wet on my porch this morning, here on the Long Beach Peninsula. Kite Festival begins today so the weight of the tourists is liable to lower the Long Beach Peninsula a few inches, but the prediction for the week’s weather is not good, I’m sorry to say.

If you’ve not already got a reservation for Kite Festival and want to come, plan on staying across the bridge in Astoria, Oregon or up river in one of the little towns along the Oregon side. Kite Festival regulars make their reservations a year in advance so the little and big motels that dot the Peninsula have largely been booked for this week for a year.

The Kite Trains and Multi-line Stacks begin at 10 AM, along with the Fighter Kites on a separate field. The long lines of kites against a blue sky are spectacular, but may be a damp affair today. The fighter kites are my favorite. Watching the hawk-shaped kites swoop and swerve and “fight” is fun. They are the same style kite used for the stunt competitions where teams of kites and flyers perform an aerial ballet to music.

This weekend I was joined on the porch by my three-year-old granddaughter and some friends from Gig Harbor. It was not as sunny as I would have wished for, but despite that life is good. Now that the company has gone the painting continues. Two coats of violet on two walls and we can begin to paint the floor.