the creepy sand face castle

so on tuesday, tara, my best friend from portland (and stanford), was coming through berkeley in her travels and stopped to spend the day with me. we went to muir beach, which is up in the marin headlands, north of san francisco. we also went out for pizza, stopped at safeway, and then went back to my place for a sleepover. early the next morning, she went to the airport to fly off to hawaii. from there she will get on a boat and spend five weeks doing some sort of ocean research related to her studies. apparently the reefs are turning to acid or something.

it was fun to spend some time with her again, since we hadn't spent much time together in the last four or five years. while at the beach, i took some pictures of course (you may want to click for larger views):

ick. i look bad.

tara looks better, even though the lighting isn't great

cute border collie

yes, there does appear to be a dead bird in the background of this picture of a bird

look at this interesting house, with its many windows for ocean views

there were lots of fancy houses

pretty waves

look, a boat

fishing?

so our sand castle/village endeavor started with this little castle we found that someone else had made:

clearly created with a mold

we moved farther down to wetter sand, and started our creation. somehow, this first building's odd shape and towers ended up looking like some sort of creepy face. i realized this once i made the door that looked like a mouth. i then added some eyes just for fun.

i added some bushes outside this sand building, which only made is creepier.

creepy sand face

tara made an entrance thingy

the dead crab leg was a little disturbing

then tara made this one:

and i made this one:

tara made another building, we added a wall, and i made a bushy/grassy/forresty area

and then i made a mountain

mountain behind the village

we lined the road to the other castle with rocks/boulders

must go through dead crab leg gate to enter or exit

it's a long road to creepy-face village

then, this fluffy dog peed on my mountain

and last but not least, a funny dog action shot: