Kite Flight

 Lots of cool kites at the Annual Festival in Zilker Park the other day. 

Sometimes There's a Tangle

These two poodles briefly got entangled in some kites strings when the toddler rushed the dogs. Everyone was extricated without injury.

Kites!

It's not easy to find a place to launch your kite or strategically place your blanket at the kite fest.

Shark Attack

Downtown buildings appear to be under attack during the kite festival last weekend. This is one of Austin's best. It's free and Zilker fills with lots of adults and kids, picnics, dogs and uncountably many kites.

Onward and Upward

These kids were bravely ascending this artificial rock climb at the recent Kite Festival. At my age, I wouldn't try that for all the tea in China. Oh to be young again!

Yaarrrrgh! Avast, Mateys!

Another kite shot from last Sunday.  This lady's fancy kite looked like a pirate ship.  It got airborne pretty well.  She didn't seem like she'd be attacking other kites!

Kite-Eating Tree Terrorizes Austin!

This young man was persistent in retrieving his kite from this tree Sunday at the Kite Festival.  He was doing a good job of it, too! We had a lot of fun wandering around and seeing all the cool kites.

Austin Soars

Every year while most of our SXSW and Rodeo Austin visitors are still packing their bags our signature park opens up to the Zilker Kite Festival. We always take the time to walk from our place (in the big building in the cluster on the left) to the park to take some pictures. People are everywhere. On the lawn flying kites, having picnics, taking pictures, petting their dogs, cuddling their babies. There are rock climbs and bouncy attractions. There are long lines to buy cup cakes or fill your water bottle. The trails and streets are crammed with people walking to the site, kites, coolers, dogs and kids in tow. And it's free. We made our trek again this year to take this picture with our still-changing skyline in the background.

Kites and Trees

Yesterday as we walked on the trail by Zilker Park a young woman asked why there were so many kites in the trees. We explained how many were flying during the festival the day before. Here's a picture I snapped on Sunday when most of them were still free. Errant kites were seen in trees at least a mile away yesterday.

Flying High

Family-friendly, fun, chaotic mixture of wholesome activities, picnics, dogs, people, strollers, bikes and, of course, kites at the annual Zilker Kite Festival. It was very hard to capture the spirit of it and how many people and dogs and kites there were. Finally settled on this one. Click on the picture for more detail.

Kites, kites and more kites

Here is another photo from last Sunday's Kite Festival. Linda got this nice shot of kite flyers with the Austin skyline in the background. The second tall building from the left is our home, by the way.

Bear in the Air

The kite festival at Zilker Park on Sunday had lots of interesting entries. This big blue bear was one of the most colorful and certainly the biggest!

Up up and away

The annual kite festival here in town happened yesterday at Zilker Park, our expansive green space on the south side of the lake. Here you see a lot of kites getting off the ground when a friendly gust of wind came along to help. For Linda and me, it was a great day to just relax, wander around and get our mental batteries recharged. It was especially nice for us, since we were able to walk over and avoid the insane traffic hassles almost everyone else had to endure. We do love living downtown. (By the way, if you look hard, you'll see Linda's camera in the lower right of this shot.)

I am a dog, but....

I like to climb trees. This dog climbed the tree over and over, taking advise from her owner about branches to use and then coming down on command. Seen at the Zilker kite festival Sunday. Some kites had less comfortable relationships with the trees.

Kite Festival

Yesterday couldn't have been more beautiful and there were thousands of kids, adults, dogs and kites soaking up the day in Zilker park. We got there kind of late in the festivities and I'm sure there were more organized parts of the festival. But random people trying to launch kites (many succeeding with almost no run space) and other oddities (a tree-climbing dog!) made it quite fun. That's our building in the background of the picture.