Kitestock 2006 has come and gone. Tom and myself were planning on heading down to kitestock on Saturday morning. The trip started pretty poorly. We left east lansing with one passport and the hopes of getting a copy of my birth certificate so I might have a slight chance of getting into Canada, or more likely back into the USA (parents were outta town and the passports locked up). Plus on the drive down my favorite hat flew right out the window. Well, turned out that the file it the copy might be in was nowhere to be found. Turned out that we found the key to the safe and got my passport. There was no stopping us now. We woke up at 8ish and headed to Canada. We pulled into mitchells bay a few hours later to find a few kites on the beach. As the day grew more and more people came and the beach was packed with kites. It was SO great to see some girls out there killing it on the water. Us Michiganders don’t get to see that all to often. The wind was not to great most got down winded but made the best of it. Some fun non-wind activities during the day: the marry go round of death, and Smokey hitting the booter (towed in style) at like 30mph (best footage of the year). The Party sat night was a BLAST to say the least at least the part I remember. They were raffling off a bunch of stuff Kyle (DETROITkiteboarding) won a wakeskate and drew (Beer CO.) got a harness. Turns out there was a 16m Best kite on the raffle so I bought some 30-40$ worth of tickets and through them all in for the kite. Turtle and 2 other people offered to donate the kite to me if they were to win as well (so nice I really appreciated that guys). Turns out they did not call my number, but the host and greatest guy EVER Brent Ford had the winning ticket. He said that he would give away the kite. So I did just about everything I could to get that kite. And believe it or not he decided to give it to me. I was so ecstatic the rest of the night was pretty much a blur. I’m sooo grateful for this. And will use it to its fullest. Sunday came around after sleeping in joe’s room on the floor. Had breakfast and headed to Bell River for some kiting. Jesse McCutcheon is one of the Best Kiteboarding national riders. Jesse helped me a lot with the kite and getting use to it and all I need to do to get it up and flying properly (need to buy a bigger bar w/ 5th line). By the way he is a really nice guy. It really nice to see that a pro would take the time to help out a newer rider, like Jesse did for me, with really nothing to gain on his part. It would have been the day to ride the 16m too though I did not have a 5th line bar to go with the kite. But from now on, on days like these which happen often ill be out there shredding with the rest of them. All I can say is this kite will be put to excellent use. From having a 10% chance of even getting into Canada and back to randomly finding the key to get my passport, I guess it was meant to be. Kitestock was everything I thought it would be and I think everyone had an amazing time (though probably not as much fun as I did). THANX Tim & April and EVERYONE else who helped out to make kitestock 2006, kitestock 2006!
