A few Sundays ago, Vivien, Alex and I made our way to Brighton Beach for the express purpose of building an ✨elaborate sand castle✨. With a few buckets, paint spreaders, and my art chopstick in tow, we decided–without any sense of how much work it would involve–on a Colosseum-based structure.
I hadn't really made *any* sand-based structures prior to this one, so I was a pleasantly surprised to see how quickly we all came up with techniques to refine our work. (Evenly aerate your sand before you add water! With your art chopstick!)
The final product had none of the perfection you might find on the #sandcastle tag on IG (ugh they're so good, those other people), but we had so much fun making it! Lots of people on the beach came by to say hello, babies threatened to run into our walls and sometimes archly aimed their beach balls in our direction, and we made friends with the kid next to us who was digging what looked to be a fairly complex tunnel system (we eventually took him on as our water drainage engineer).
However it had happened, we had all somehow said yes to the right things, and the most beautiful day in recent memory unfolded before us. We had build the structure only a little ways away from the water. As the tide came to shore in the late afternoon, it started knocking down one of the walls–which was perfect, because it made our work look more like the real thing than ever.
We spent the rest of the day watching the ocean wash away the rest of the walls, and when it finally disappeared, we left.
I think we want to keep making goofy things together. I've always wanted to create some version of the Wright Brother's airplane and fly it around in Kitty Hawk, NC. Vivien thinks we should make a few kite-versions before we go... LIFE-SIZE.
S/O to Alex for finding this beautiful blueprint of the 1903 Flyer (source).
