Zilker Park Kite Festival

Zilker Park is more than just the home of the annual Austin City Limits Music Festival (ACL), which is what brought us to Austin for the first time in 2005. Zilker has it all: the wonderful waters of Barton Springs (natural fresh water swimming pool), the massive soccer fields that are a leash-free zone for dogs, great botanical gardens, the Zilker Hillside Theater, a nine hole frisbee golf (or, um, "folf") course, the Zilker Zephyr miniature train, the Umlauf Sculpture Garden, a polo field and a nature center. It is also home to tons of annual and special events:

• The aforementioned ACL


• Annual Rugby Tournament


• Zilker Gardens Festival


• Ballet in the Park


• Blues on the Green


• Freedom Festival and Fireworks


• Zilker Park Fall Jazz Festival


• Zilker Park Tree Lighting and Trail of Lights


• Austin Shakespeare Festival


• Annual Summer Musical (broadway musical) in the park


• Barton Springs diving championship

And the Kite Festival. Rachel and I went to the Zilker Park Kite Festival a couple of weekends ago. The annual festival features a bunch of different kite-flying competitions, plus vendors, demonstrations on kite building and other kite-related stuff. We were expecting to see a hundred or so kites in the air. WRONG! It happened to be probably the windiest day since we moved here, which might have been why the crowd was so huge. There must have been 500 or so kites flying at any given time. Butterflies, boats, spaceships, dragons, boxes, Spiderman, Sponge Bob and a giant whale. Plus corndogs! It was a sight to see. I pity the fools who got too close to the trees along the perimeter, some of which gobbled up 20 or more kites. Here's the picture show:

The scene at the Kite Festival

Who wants a jumbo corn dog?

Pufferfish?

40 foot whale kite

Kites beware!