Another recap of a good trip from April. The summer wind in Minnesota has been terrible. Reviewing the fun we had in April is an alright substitute, for now.
Look, Mom!
New Word:
“Kitegenta”
Apparently, what the Air Padre dudes call the color that appears on iKitesurf when winds tip over 30mph.
Posted in SPI, kiting, wind
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How to Prepare for a Kite Vacation
I’m heading to South Padre Island pretty soon for a lovely week-long kite trip. I’ve learned that kiting makes my fairly dynamic and intelligent brain quit considering the possibilities of the universe and instead focus on one track only: riding the wind. Oh well. So, what does one do to prepare for an adventure?
- Find airfare. Cheap is good. Sun Country flies on Monday-Friday for around $230 round-trip.
- Get your friends together and find a house to rent in South Padre.
- Anticipate the week of vacation from work for a couple months.
- Use up the eggs, milk, and yogurt that you keep in the fridge. Hell, finish up the beers that are in there too. They go bad too.
- Do laundry… even though I’ll be spending the entire day in neoprene and a bikini, I might need some skivvies at some point, right?
- Dig out the neoprene that’s been gathering dust since October. Throw it across your apartment in excited abandon.
- Two days before you leave, enjoy the first day of over sixty-degree temperatures since November while thinking, “If I could hustle up a thick wetsuit, I could go ride, right?”
- Cook spring rolls because it’s easy to wrap all the random foods left in your fridge into rice paper.
- Pack. This is the hard part. The ratio of water-clothing to eating-out-after-kiting-clothing is tricky. Before I can even get to that point, I have to shove a 143cm board and two kites into a golf bag.
- Get incredibly jealous that half the people I know are playing in South Padre at the moment.
- Begin to obsessively check three different wind forecasts while keeping an eye on the Weather Channel’s ten-day outlook, all while assuring myself that these things change frequently.
Posted in SPI, kiting, picture
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Snowkiting in a 17″ Blizzard
Only for this strange sport of kiting would one elect to venture out into a blizzard because the wind was going to be good. Minnesota was pummeled by snow, wind, and freezing drizzle for a good majority of yesterday. Since it was windy on a day I didn’t have to work, I naturally attempted to take advantage of it.
We arrived at White Bear Lake in the early afternoon yesterday in an attempt to kite on the lake. Once we got there, we were treated to a skating rink. The ice boats sure were enjoying it, zipping by at a nice clip. Kiting on it, though? Not such a grand idea.
After a moment, we headed to the athletic fields at Mahtomedi’s high school. The space was awkward to kite in; it kind of felt like kiting inside Tetris blocks. Weird shapes, strange dynamics. I pumped up my 7 meter and hung out for a short while before being entirely overpowered by a gust. 
I ended up hanging out and watching a blizzard happen. Not the worst thing to be doing… after all, had I been cooped up inside all day, I just would have been antsy and irritable due to being unable to be in the snow. At one point, two inches of snow came down in an hour! Once we left, we were treated to a small lightning show. No matter how often one sees lightning in the snow, it’s always a bit shocking (har har) when it occurs.