{"id":30078,"date":"2016-05-15T21:36:15","date_gmt":"2016-05-16T02:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=30078"},"modified":"2016-05-17T18:51:40","modified_gmt":"2016-05-17T23:51:40","slug":"of-kites-and-clouds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=30078","title":{"rendered":"Of Kites and Clouds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I slept in this morning.  I needed it.  After <a href=http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=30060\">the Mid-Maryland Celtic Festival and a Frederick Keys baseball game<\/a>, I was wiped out.<\/p>\n<p>The weather front &mdash; and the winds &mdash; that had plagued the festival and the ballgame continued into Sunday afternoon, so after lunch I took my kite and walked over to Yoe Park, about a half mile from my apartment.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/20160515_144338-1200x900.jpg\" alt=\"20160515_144338\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-30072\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/20160515_144328-1200x900.jpg\" alt=\"20160515_144328\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-30071\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/20160515_144343-1200x900.jpg\" alt=\"20160515_144343\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-30073\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I unfolded the kite, which I hadn&#8217;t used since last year, attached the streamers, attached the line, and set it aloft.<\/p>\n<p>It was clearly the right day for it.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/20160515_143339-1200x900.jpg\" alt=\"20160515_143339\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-30070\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/20160515_143331-1200x900.jpg\" alt=\"20160515_143331\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-30069\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/20160515_143243-1200x900.jpg\" alt=\"20160515_143243\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-30068\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/20160515_142733-1200x900.jpg\" alt=\"20160515_142733\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-30067\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I spent a surprisingly long period of time flying the kite, almost an hour and a half.<\/p>\n<p>The winds were strong, often too strong, and the kite spent more time aloft than not.  But when it crashed, it usually crashed <i>spectacularly<\/i>, thanks to those strong winds.<\/p>\n<p>The park had a swing-set, so naturally I availed myself of it, whistling a Winnie-the-Pooh song the whole time.<\/p>\n<p>Once I was done, I sat on a bench in the park and read some on my Kindle.<\/p>\n<p>Then I saw a dragon sleeping in the sky amongst the clouds.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/20160515_155229-1200x900.jpg\" alt=\"20160515_155229\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-30074\" \/><\/p>\n<p>After dinner, I went to the grocery store &mdash; I needed things like bread and peanut butter and milk.  You know, <i>necessities<\/i>.  And I saw an <i>incredible<\/i> storm cloud approaching my apartment.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/20160515_193956-1200x900.jpg\" alt=\"20160515_193956\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-30075\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Yes, that&#8217;s the same water tower in one of the pictures from the park.  From this angle, I live a little bit to the right of the water tower.  From the park, I lived on the other side of the water tower.<\/p>\n<p>When I arrived home, this was the sight that greeted me:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/20160515_195358-1200x900.jpg\" alt=\"20160515_195358\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-30076\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Hundreds of feet above and backlit by the setting sun, sheets of rain were falling.  The rain descended like tendrils, and the tendrils shifted and shimmied as they fell.<\/p>\n<p>The sight was both beautiful and eerie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I slept in this morning. I needed it. After<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30076,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[4436,415,4435],"class_list":["post-30078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","tag-kiting","tag-rain","tag-yoe-park","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}