March 2002 NFKA Fly Report
From: Brian Johnsen <johnsen@eskimo.com>
Subject: NFKA March Meet in Lacey, Wa.
Date: Sun Mar 17 10:53:41 PST 2002
Dennis whimped out and didn't show so I'll have to write up the fantastic March NFKA Meet that he missed out on.
After a weeklong buildup of snowstorm threats, I woke up on Saturday morning to fat wet snowflakes falling from the sky. The patio wasn't frozen or coated though, and it looked like I could still make it down to Lacey without *too* much trouble. I set out a half hour early to be on the safe side. Coming down into the valley, the snow let up and was intermittant all the way to Lacey.
The park was fairly easy to find with Richs' directions and
had wide fields with good wind ( with only a couple of unfortunately
placed oak trees ). I met John and new member Ed Haynes,
soon followed by Leroy Peoples and bunch of the familiar crowd.
In short order we got one of the mylar club kites stuck in
the oaks and spent an hour or so trying various strategies to get it
out again. First I tried picking it out with a quadline
kite. It was difficult to fly the quad in the wind shadow
of the tree and I soon had that kite stuck in the tree as well.
I really didn't want to leave the park, after our club
meet, decorated with kites in all the trees. We thought
about it some more and finally Rich volunteered his static kite line
and a crecent wrench we could tie on to pitch over the end of the
branches. We finally got my quadline out and then the
fighter ( trashing it in the process ). At least we
deprived the tree of a meal.
The slow drizzling rain had let up finally and we had a debate about if we should break for lunch before the match or get going now. We took a look around and the towering walls of black clouds convinced us we should take advantage of the current break in the weather. The mach was begun with many really smooth points and the usual silly mistakes. The sun even made an appearance on and off making the meet a lot more comfortable. I finally took a three point match off Chuck, which surprised the heck out of me, but I lost a few to others by flying into the ground, so I didn't get too huffy about it.
Chuck took first with sixteen points. Steve took second with thirteen. Rich and I had eleven each, so we had a sudden death match which I won to take third.
After the round robin, we retired to the Mein Chinese Buffet to warm up and yak about the meet and other fighter junk. It's just East of I-5 at exit 109, and had a wide variety of chinese treats to fill up on and ward off the low temperature.
All in all another sucessful NFKA montly meet. The weather cooperated and helped provide us with as many goofy grins as we could hope for.
Next month is at Cannon Beach, Oregon April 26-28 ( Fri - Sun ).