It's peeeeeople.
According to the Red Bull website I was somewhere in the crowd of ~80,000 people who turned out to watch people jump into the Willamette today. In addition to the flying creations launched into the river, there were the Red Bull skydive team, music DJ'ed by Gustav of 94.7 KNRK, and did I mention more people than you can shake a stick at? I was in the main 'mass' of people at Waterfront Park and in my pictures I didn't much of any shots behind me because it was just too crowded but notice the people in boats, people on the other side of the river, people stacked up on the hawthorne bridge, and just rows and rows of spectators lined up as far out as OMSI. Never really been to anything this crowded.
We got really lucky with parking and getting in and out. We found parking about 6 blocks or so away around 9:30 am which was before the parking attendent showed up (or knew about this event) this was nice because we only had to pay the flat weekend rate of $4. (by the time we left he had jacked up the price to $10 and there was not a parking space to be seen for quite a long ways.) We didn't stay for the whole show. I had to be somewhere else later in the day plus we wanted to avoid traffic. So we left about 45 minutes early. The last craft I saw launch ended up being the winner. A giant tricycle with a hanglider like structure built on top.
The skydivers were pretty cool. They jumped from a helicopter only a few thousand feet up, did a bunch of crazy looking spins and dives and all three landed right on the launch ramp. My favorite one I think was team 'Lego My Red Bull'. They had not only a craft made of what looked from a distance like perfect jumbo sized lego blocks but had awesome lego people costumes to match. For the record though, their craft flew like a brick ;)
It was fun, I would go again but I would not want to get there and leave at the sametime as everyone else. Get there early!
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