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Blake and dean's Excellent Adventure

Holy cow, where do you start an adventure like this? Who wants to read about it? At the beginning of course, but what if that is in and of itself vague? Well, then, what's the last thing you remember? August 13th was a Friday this year, and it was also the day our friend and fellow kiter Dave Kennedy was found dead on his kitchen floor. From there to here is an amazing journey that spanned coast to coast.

Here goes: I was in Vermont to fly kites for the last Phish show with Marc Ricketts and the fabulous Guildworks Flyers when I got the call. The Phish show was almost completely rained out, though we still managed to find time to fly kites. Flying kites really helped me with the unreality of Dave's death. Not speaking to lvtDave everyday is really going to take some getting used to.

I flew out to Dave's August 19th to meet with our friends and see our buddy off, not easy, lots of kite people there. One of the logistical nightmares we had to over come was Dave had been involved in this huge project called the Bok Globule for our friend Barbie a fellow camper with the Dept. of Tethered Aviation, http://www.dotarocks.net - a Theme Camp at the Burning Man Festival that Dave was heavily involved in. Dave had been working with three of our camp mates when his untimely departure took place. After a few dazes had passed, all of us directly involved and including Dave's Mom, agreed Dave would want the project he'd worked so hard on, to be completed.

Time to go into overdrive. The all aluminum dome had been completed and assembled in Northern California by our crack team of volunteers by the time I drove Dave's big dually truck up there with my camping gear and lots of stuff from the Leave it to Dave pile of Burning Man and desert gear that was abundant.

My job was to sew a screen dome that would be suspended from inside the dome so as to show off the outside structure. This was to be built out of gold lame' cloth and would become the projection surface for the inside of the Globules planetarium projection system! Oh, and make it snappy, there's only a few days left till Burning Man begins.

Well as this is mostly a traction site, all spare you the non traction related story and just tell you that the dome was a great success and you can read more about it at: http://www.dotarocks.net/wst_page8.html

After Burning Man I came back to El Mirage to help Blake Pelton who had been hired by Dave run Dave's business. His family decided not to carry on with that and we respect their wishes. Meanwhile, Blake and our friend Aaron Heffelfinger who also worked with Dave were stationed at El Mirage Dry Lake and had to go out and buggy and land board almost every single night! We made it our sworn duty to try to get out at least by 6 every night, but some times got there earlier. It didn't matter. Once we started to buggy, we'd not stop unless the wind stopped. One night, it stopped, and we all just sat around talking and after a while, the wind came back, a good two hours after the sun went down. Full moon, waning moon, no moon it didn't matter, we would ride the often-high wind with abandon. I've never had a more soulful experience in the desert. Lots and lots of high-speed runs, and just good high quality time with two dedicated kite sluts. Let the healing begin. Near the end of our stay, Blake and I were using the off road capabilities of our Buggies more and more. There is something to be said to being fully powered up, and not being able to see more than 50 or 60 feet in front of you, having to make spit second decisions and just going like hell down a cinder trail at what feels like Mach One! I note here that for the last year and a half, I've used Peter Lynn Phantoms almost exclusively as a buggy kites, on mostly a 50cm bar. I hate red on the left, but have almost completely trained myself to no longer look at the bar, just the lines. Meanwhile my top speeds and ability to ride in gustier conditions with a bigger kite, while feeling more secure, is blowing me away. My favorite desert size is the 9m.

After doing a couple of kite clinics and demos in Southern California and seeing our old buddy Steve Kent it was time to head for Oregon for the 27th annual AKA convention being held in Seaside Oregon. We were ready to get out of California and hit the road, but first I wanted Blake to see where I've been slipping off to for the last couple of years with this KiteShip http://www.kiteship.com thang! Dave Culp met us down near the Golden Gate Yacht club in San Francisco where we boarded a J-120 to go out and do a little kite sailing.

Winds were not up to the usual San Francisco 20 + but were still usable though light. Dave Culp and I set a 95m KiteShip Outleader Sail almost immediately upon leaving the harbor mouth, which took us rapidly down wind almost under the Oakland Bay Bridge, the looks on the kiteflyers faces were amazing. This was one of the first times to my knowledge that a fellow traction pilot has even seen one of these large downwind kites, much less used it. Yeah, we did that thing with the Flintstone buggy, but this is the real deal. A kite of over 1,000 square feet under perfect control pulling a 40-foot yacht is the damn cat's clitoris. We gibed for show and did two perfect recovery launches for show and called it a day. Blake's special Jamie quoted, "Now this is the way to see San Francisco Bay!"

Leaving our Northern California friends behind we set out for the famed Hood River, home to constant wind, and smooth flat water. Except when the EA rolls into town! What a town though, a kite shop on every corner and kite stickers everywhere, but no wind. Oh well, we checked the weather with the locals, who told us we should have been there yesterday! Who hasn't heard that before? God don't you love wind sports?

Blake and I made our way up the river and up to Seattle after a night in Portland to check out one of our Burning Man crew. We'd been told to be in Seattle Thursday night by 6pm so, we were. Checked into our hotel and got a call a few minutes after we checked in. Blake took the message -"uh-huh, yeah... uh, right got it.." "Who was that?" I asked. That was Scott, he said "come across the road after 6 and before 7, you'll recognize it because the trees grow out the window, it's called the ruins". Yeah Right!

Not even considering what might come next, Blake and I broke out our finest clothing, a nice button down for Blake, and a Hawaiian print shirt for me. We threw water on them, ironed them all up, and after a couple of beers headed over expecting to meet a few friends and have dinner. Little did we know? As we crossed the street we noticed well dressed people headed for the building across the street with the trees growing out of the windows, wow, big, dark, industrial looking place long abandoned, wonder where all these well dressed people are going, this place is huge, and we get to the door and there is none other than Scott Skinner and Ali Fujino with open arms. "Come in, come in!" they say, "Go in and get something to drink and make yourself at home!" We were speechless. Everyone was dressed to the nines, and there's your intrepid duo looking just like Bill and Ted all but drooling. It was an open bar however, so we knew how to act right away! Blake sampled the beers, I drank the red wine! The food was amazing and there's Peter Lynn, oh and Martin Lester, and Jose Sainz and all sorts of exotic kite artist, including Robert Trepanier and are those professional dancers? Now this is a party! The list of kite glitterati was a who's who of kiting in the world today. Melissa McKelvey was there, Don Montague's erstwhile right hand woman. The night swirled away in talks about all things kite and will be forever remember but none more so than by us, who had no idea of the scope and breadth of this wonderful organization. You see it turned out to be the tenth anniversary of the Drachen foundation, and they were also releasing a book on Japanese kite prints. The Drachen Foundation is a non-profit educational corporation that facilitates educational projects that concern historical, cultural, and artistic areas of kiting. They are writing our history folks. Cool stuff. Thank goodness there is somewhere someone collecting and writing about all that has gone before and all that is going on now, for most of our history has not been taken seriously, even to this day. When will a self respecting kite professional here in the United States every be able to say to the person in seat 13B when asked what they do, "I fly kites for a living" not invoke the Charlie Brown kite vision we all have to put up with. Sigh!

We spent another day and night in Seattle then headed for Lincoln City where we heard a Mr. Gomberg was throwing a party. Evidently there was a kite festival on the beach there, though we got there to late to enjoy much on Saturday even though Martin Lester somehow won first place and a prize just for showing up! Way to go Martin! We headed to David and Susan's house only to be told the party wasn't until tomorrow, but thanks for bringing the beer! Hey, we're here to help. Still don't know who that Mexican was that kept asking if it was okay to hunt. Anyway, off to one of the McMinamems Pubs for our friend Jenny Cooks surprise birthday. Jenny is enjoying her 39th year on earth and looks fantastic in spite of the fact that she has worked for Peter Lynn longer than just about anyone on earth! How do you do it, Jenny? Someone not acquainted with kiting might at this point say, "wait, all you guys do is party". Not true! We often fly kites, which is increasingly hard work, as those of you in kiting will surely attest.

Well the beer flowed and the pizza was consumed and the jokes were told and all had a fantastic time, as mystery guests showed up, including Corey Jensen, looking relaxed and ready for a week of holding court. The magic cake came out along with two waitress-holding fire extinguishers! No need, Jenny blew the candles out smartly! It was grand and now it's late and time to crash, but there is no motel rooms in town, and the only place we can crash are on the floor of our friend's motel room. Glad I don't snore.

Next day, the wind was lite and there was a freakin' river flowing right through the kite field. Blake felt like a sissy after wading across as he'd stopped, rolled up his pants and removed his shoes, after all it is October and a bit chilly, before he noticed Peter Lynn clomping back in forth across said river in his shoes and socks no pants adjustment necessary, thank you very much! After awhile, we could tell it wasn't happening very much and we were anxious to get to our new home up in Seaside, Oregon and claim our beds. Off we drove, stopping now and then to gander at the shore and fabulous Oregon coastline, wow.

"WAKE UP!" Damn Blake, where are we? "We're home frog face" (Blake is very affectionate), can't you tell? I could! There was a large HAPPY BIRTHDAY sign in the front yard of what must be our new home! Yay, there's our roommates out on the porch. I began the search of the house to find my room. All the rooms were labeled. There was Scott's room, Jose's room, Meg and Bill's room, Jenny and Laurie's room, and Corey's room. Hmm, maybe I'm in the bunk beds? Let's see, Blake, Martin, Peter, guest. Hmmm, not there, now what?? Ahhhh, you know, I kind of anticipated this sort of treatment, you know Rock Star. I must be in the back yard by myself! Yup, there's where I'm going to put my eight person-two room-you can have a dance in it-tent! I'll have all the privacy I can handle, plus be able to invite guests! Yeah Buddy! Thanks guys, for looking out for me! Love everybody! That's our gang! So now all we had to do was stock the place with food and drink and we'd be ready for a week of kite flying! Let the party begin! Plenty of folks dropped by to help but not before the first controversy of the week happened. You see, it turns out that Richard Ridgeway had a couple of buggy's stolen from him recently, and Blake and I had been reported driving in the area. The kite buggy network alerted friends and Eli Anderson was dispatched to come catch us at it. Of course, once he got there he realized that the buggy's in question were the wrong kind of buggys and so took us on a whirl wind tour of Seaside. Hope you find your buggys, Richard. Woe is me to the villain that stole them.

Next day we were excited to unwrap the new Peter Lynn kite boat brought in for the convention and for the first Kite Boat Symposium we were to give later in the week at the AKA convention. Unfortunately the boat was broken in several places during shipment and would have to be repaired before being sea worthy.

No problem, as the boys ran off to find some Fiberglas, resin and sandpaper they got to work fairing out the breaks and filling in the cracks. Meanwhile, Jon Ellis alerted the troops and brought folks by to sand the boat along with Richard Ridgeway lending a hand. The airlines had really done a job on her. No worries though, before you knew it, she was ready to go, now all we need is wind. Oh boy!

Every day we'd get up early, remark on how clean the house was for the size of the party the night before, and make breakfast. The works, a good kite flying day is preceded by a lot of bacon, fat, butter, eggs, cheese, pepper, onions, coffee and juice. Before the week was out we had everything you could imagine for breakfast at least once, yowza kite flying is fun! Then we'd be off by about 10 since the wind never seemed to blow until around 11 anyway. We'd head out to fill our portion of the beach and sky up with nylon and wait for people to walk down to talk to us. We've found that the areas in front of the conventions are almost always made up of those pesky sport kite fields requiring someone to talk all day long on a PA. These places also lots of fence posts to catch kites on and in general make kite flying kind of hard to do, due to all the rules and people running around with clip boards feeling important. This sort of negates the whole reason I started flying kites-you know, to have FUN! At any rate, we found if you move a little bit away, all the fun seekers will come visit you anyway, and bring their kites, and maybe some wine, and maybe a six pack or something cool to show and hang out and talk shit about and maybe cause some trouble or some such wild un-American thing. Bunch of kite subversives, sheesh. The nerve of us, to put on a great big kite show, right on the beach, and right next door to the 27th Annual AKA convention.

I guess it should be pointed out at this point that due to the fact the AKA does not have the proper insurance, we traction kiters are not allowed to buggy at the convention in spite of the fact the place is perfect for it. Kite Traction chair, what's up with that?? I feel dirty, like a skateboarder!
How low can you go?

In spite of our out law status we bring the kite boat to the beach everyday, but the wind is rarely up enough to drive out through the breakers, which were hella bigger than they looked from the shore. Plus, strangely, perhaps due to my almost unbearable desire to get on the boat, the wind never seemed to blow anytime I was anywhere remotely near the boat. As it would turn out, I never actually got to use it in Seaside.

Peter did use the kite boat one day, and so did Speedy and Aaron, but it just never got really windy enough to use well. Day after day, they made sure it was at the beach. More on that later. Remember, this kite flying is serious work, and all during this world wind time there were seminars and meetings and all the cool stuff that makes organizations so organized. Keeping up with any one of us during the week was a family affair and we all helped each other out by reminding them what they were doing it and also where. For instance, "Dean, you and Peter and Blake are giving a talk tomorrow at 11am." says Meg. Ahhhhhhhhhh, thank you, yes, I was all about that, let me get my notes.

Meanwhile, the word on the house is getting out and getting around. Each night seems a little brighter and everyday we have a different theme. One afternoon we had the pumpkin carving experience letting Martin and Jenny share in our Halloween tradition here. Beautiful Pumpkins they were too! Some nights were wine night. One night we had a "Beers from Colorado Night" which was well received. Allegedly there was even a fairy kidnapping! With Ransom note and ugly bat left in her place! What Goodwind blows that way?? The police even stole the kite boat thinking it had been misplaced. Maybe we are having to much fun.

Where was I? Oh yeah, trying to share this trip with you guys out there in kite buggy land. Where ever it might be. You see I've always believed the buggy scene in the US could be much bigger than it is. Did you know there are over 5,000 members in the British Buggy Club? These guys are going off. They have less space than us and ride more and with more people. We have space and no one seems to even know what it is that we do. "Hey too bad you can't go the other way with that thing!" is still a common thing to hear. What's wrong with us? All over the world folks are discovering the kite buggy and or traction kiting. We all know it's good, but why are our numbers so small? What I'd like to do is turn more people on to this great sport. Get more people out to experience the joys of desert riding, and in general get more excitement going with regards to this amazing thing we do. You can help. Write us here! Let us hear from you about what you are doing with your kite buggy. Tell us about any events you know about. No matter where you are from. Use this site! We want to be the clearinghouse for kite buggy activity in the US and we are working to be able to do that. If you have pictures, we're going to find a way to use them better. We want to have contest and ways to get buggiers from further and further away, together. We want to share what we are learning, and also great places to buggy. Hopefully there are more out there like us.

The rest of the week blurred into one huge party, especially after Thursday when it started raining and pretty much didn't let up. Kites were flown indoors but pretty much the party just intensified culminating with the serious weekend-last night we're here party. We were throwing people out around 4am, Go Home!

The highlights had to be the Kite Boat and the Kite Boat Conference. It's good to get this thing out in the open. It is not going to go away, kite boats will improve as kites improve. Peter already uses a motor on his, making the boat ever practical for a day sail. The coast of Oregon is a super place to buggy. I've ridden it before. It's too bad we didn't get the wind on this trip to fully exploit it. We were geared up and ready to go that's for sure. Maybe next time.

The adventure continues wherever the wind blows and kites fly. Stay tuned for more places and more riders.

dean

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