One Sky One World

Date: 10/11/09
Place: Bethel Park, Columbia, MO
Kites: E2 on 85', Purple/Black Beetle, Tumbling Cube
Wind: 5 - 9 mph (gusty), E
Weather: Mostly sunny, 45-55º

One Sky One World is a festival that may happen in lots of places around the county (and maybe world?), but in Missouri it is a kite festival in Columbia, MO. Being half way between Kansas City and St.Louis, it is a nice opportunity to have a laid back kite fly near the end of the general kite flying season. This year due to the St. Louis flyers attending the national AKA fesitval in Rochester, MN, no one from St. Louis came. There were a few people from Kansas City and I finally met John Grimshaw from Columbia, and Andy and Bonnie from Jefferson City.

A few new (to kites) people showed up: Tara (a reporter from ?), Kelsey (a reporter from VOX, a UM school newspaper), my friends Dan, and Pat, from the Irish music group I play tunes with. I helped these three with a flying a purple and black two-line Beetle kite that Ryan from KC brought. Kelsey was so enthusiastic about the kite flying that she later ordered a Beetle of her own.

I flew my E2 and it did fairly well in the squirrelly and gusty wind conditions. Bethel Park is not my favorite place to fly (a not-too-spacious sloped field with trees and buildings too close by). Tricks that worked well: 540s, axels, 1/2 axels, backflips/lazy susans, backspins, fades, and flic-flacs.

I flew my tumbling cube a while and also let Pat try it -- actually I said, "Here," and handed the line to her, and stepped away to talk to someone. She had fun with it.