Jeff joins Gwynn and Levi at Zilker park for the kite festival.

There was almost enough wind for the kite festival today. There were still a lot of kites in the air, but the big competition kites mostly stayed on the ground.

For our picnic, I brought South Texas oranges, tortilla chips, and spicy hummus. Gwynn brought fresh fruit, carrots, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and brownies. Levi brought cupcakes. It was a good lunch.

This was my first time to bring a kite to the festival. I usually just look at everyone else's kites because it is so crowded. I put together my 2x4 box kite first. It has 4 rows with 2 diamond shaped boxes each. It was too heavy and never got off the ground. My more standard box kite went up after a few attempts. There was a nice ground level gust for a few minutes, so a lot more people got their kites into the air at that time. The kites flew with a wide range of string angles. More than a few of them got tangled. Mine included. There was a mass of kites in the air with their strings together. Eventually only mine and a very high flying triangle were left together. Somehow, my line went over their line, but my string angle was lower. There was no way to get loose. I didn't want to bring down their kite since it had been up for a long time, so I cut my string. Gwynn, Levi, and I spent 15 minutes untangling the Gordian Knot. Lucky for everyone, the world did not end. We had to cut about 50 feet out of my spool.

I think I will refrain from bringing my kites to future festivals.