One more day touring Astoria. We visited the Maritime museuma and enjoyed climbing all ofver one of the retired coast guard vessels. This is a wonderful museum sharing the history of the west coast developement, the life of the fisherman, and the developemnt of the salmon canneries. Dick decided he was ready for some new dive gear and checked out this equipment. Aside from being a little cumbersome, it looks like it would work. HMM not for me....

Today we were at Long Beach Washington enjoying the National kite festival. This event lasts a full 7 days with all kind of events. Hundreds of kites on display high in the air. We were wowed by the variety: seahorses, lobsters, squid, caterpillars, cats, dogs, octopus, sea lions, a school bus and every shape and color you could imagine flying high. The colors were amazing, a glorius sunshine breezy day. We enjoyed watching the kite fights : Basir Beria the kite master kite for the film the Kite Runner was there.. he was responsible for building and tuning the beautiful kites used for the film and also for teaching the Chinese children and actors how to fly them. Of couse we had to get into the spirit and bought a kite. Who knows where this new activity will lead us.

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