WASHINGTON STATE INTERNATIONAL KITE FESTIVAL BEGINS MONDAY

The View from My Porch

It’s a beautiful morning here on the Long Beach Peninsula and ready or not, here the tourists come. The Washington State International Kite Festival begins Monday and already motels (especially those located near the Bolstad approach to the beach) and streets are beginning to fill with tourists. This is the time of year when negotiating the six block drive to my mother’s apartment proves challenging.

Last night when we drove to the beach to walk the dog the food tent for the Ilwaco Jr./Sr. High School Sports Boosters was going up. The Booster Club, many of them fishermen, put on a barbecued salmon dinner each year for the Kite Festival. The dinner includes coleslaw and corn on the cob or you can purchase a crab cocktail. Fishermen know how to cook salmon. There will be other food booths the length of the approach which will be for foot traffic only all of next week.

Events will be held for all ability levels and it will be an opportunity to see professional kite fliers from all over the world. Everything from the biggest to the littlest to the most will grace the skies of Long Beach. The forecast is for extremely good weather. That coupled with the slight dip in the price of gas should bode well for this year’s event.

When not on the beach, festival goers can visit the Washington State Kite Museum located on the Sid Snyder beach approach.

This year’s festival coincides with my husband’s vacation and for once someone else is doing work on our old house instead of him. Aside from finishing the fence he will be free to ride his bike to the beach to gawk at the kites and tourists. Taking the car is out of the question since the traffic will be backed up from Long Beach all the way through Seaview. People wanting to go to Astoria will be backed up from the light in Ilwaco to Black Lake.

It may not be too late to obtain reservations for next week, especially if one tries the North end of the Peninsula in Kilpsan or Ocean Park. Check the Long Beach webcams next week for a bird’s eye view of the doings. Unfortunately, the Kite Cam seems to be under the weather, but the other cams in town should give you an idea of what’s happening. I’ve contacted the webmaster of the Fun Beach website and we’ll hope they get it up and running before Monday.

Well, the UPS man turned out to be a very nice athletic young woman and a large box now graces my porch waiting for my husband’s arrival. Actually the box will make a great toy for my grandson whose arrival I await. Mostly, though, he will be wanting to be down on the "beach beach" flying his own Spiderman kite.