Kite Festival…Sort Of

We heard of a Kite Festival that was going to be held South of Fayetteville. It sounded like a fun idea so we loaded up the kids and a neighbor friend and began our 44.93 mile trek. We breezed through the first 31.8 miles and then heard a large boom.

We looked back and saw the highway was clear, so we weren't sure what had happened.

We got off our exit and began to hear the "ba-bum" sound of a flat tire.

We pulled right into the parking lot of an abandoned building. It was PERFECT timing. Nothing worse than a flat on the interstate.

Tommy T and I got to work. The kids were worried they would miss their kite festival - but we assured them we were still good to go...and they needed to relax and enjoy the adventure of it all.

We had the spare put on in just a few minutes and noticed there was a Wal-Mart Tire Lube Express right across the street. Again...perfect.

We dropped the car off and decided to grab lunch for the kids at McDonald's inside of the store. Under normal circumstances this would be a big No-No. Ew. Not so perfect.

While I ordered food, Tommy T went and bought hand sanitizer and antibacterial wipes.

 

 

The kids cleaned their tables before the food came.

 

It was amazing all the dirty looks we were getting from the rednecks. They looked so insulted.

Bryce was eager to be disinfected after being placed in his highchair. The woman on the oxygen tank at the next table was especially disgusted. She glared at us in between yelling at her grandchildren.

After a delicious and nutritious lunch, we perused Wal-Mart for 40 minutes.

During our down time, Tommy T got to witness my Wal-Mart freak magnet LIVE! IN PERSON!!!

The guy "over" the Toy department came to tell me about how stressful his job is...how much responsibility he has...and how exhausting it is to keep up with the demands that are placed on him everyday as he "tries to maintain the safety requirements".

A few minutes later, our tire guy came in and showed us what he found in our tire.

He was shocked...said he had never seen anything like it. We were so lucky blessed that it didn’t completely blow our tire out and cause an accident.

 

(It was the BOLT in our tire…not the knife :) Used to show scale). Onward.

It was past 4 pm – but we were determined to go to “the festival”. We continued our trek to Canehill.

We eventually made our way up a steep, rocky incline and ended up in a beautiful clearing on top of a hill.

We had arrived at “The Festival”…or what was left of it, anyway.

We didn’t have any trouble finding a parking space.

There was a woman packing up the concession stand…and a couple of “professional kite flyers” out in the field.

 

Looked like we were going to have to throw our own festival.

We assembled the kites and got busy. The lack of a crowd actually turned out beautifully. We had the entire hill to ourselves. The only thing missing was the Nachos and Snickers bars we would have scored from the treat lady.

The wind was strong…perfect kite flying weather.

After we had them tuckered out – we headed back home – convinced this will be a new family tradition every year.

Yes- we drove 44.93 miles to fly kites.

Worth every mile of it…even the flat tire.