Sometimes it’s just too cool to be living in Southern California! Today we went to the beach (in Long Beach) and took some photos of all the activity. A sandcastle contest was underway, with some pretty spectacular efforts, including Mount Rushmore (which I mistook for Devil’s Tower) and a castle encircled by a dragon. As there is little or no wave activity in Long Beach, the greatest danger to the castles came from the sun and the wind. We plopped ourselves down in beach chairs, turned on our iPods, and soaked up the sun and the view. Out in the water, there were lots of sailboats, and a load of kiteboarders. Kiteboarding, where you attach yourself on a wakeboard to a huge kite that pulls you along in the water, is the latest craze to hit Southern California beaches. And it was a perfect day for it, with a strong breeze blowing off the water. We took a bunch of pictures of the afternoon, and I made them into a quicktime movie, too (it’s a big download at 5.3MB). Life is good!