Labor Day Weekend

It is Labor Day weekend and we are still in Long Beach Washington. We have stayed longer than planned because Joani had an infection in her leg that flared up and required some extensive antibiotic treatment. Happily it is much better now.

Since the kite festival we have had a lot of rain, mostly light but a few heavy downpours that sounded really loud on the roof of the motorhome.

The rain has kept us indoors a lot and I needed something to do so decided to build a kite train based on a Japanese kite design called the Wave. It is a very simple little kite. The Japanese make them from paper and bamboo but I decided to use Tyvek, which is a material used to provide a moisture barrier in home construction. You might be familiar with it in the form of the envelopes that Priority Mail sometimes comes in, you know - the kind that you can't tear open. I tried to buy some of the construction Tyvek locally but the builder's supply store sells it only in 100 foot by 10 foot rolls, which is about 99 feet more than I need. I found a much cheaper solution in the form of some discarded mail envelopes. They just happen to be about the right size so worked out nicely. I used some small wooden dowels for sticks and added tails made of a kind of vinyl tape called Flag Tape, which is also a builder's material.

Here is a photo of the train of 15 kites:



The weather is perfect today, with blue skys and good winds, so I think I will go down to the beach and fly the kites.