National Sandcastle Competition

So I read one day that the national sandcastle competition is held in Imperial Beach, which is about 15 minutes south of San Diego, so I decided it would be fun to check out. This year was the 25th anniversary so there were plenty of festivities to go around. There was a street fair, live bands, rides, tons of food, and of course tons of people. The rules of the competition were pretty interesting. I figured the teams had all weekend to make their creation, but in fact they were only given from 8am to 1pm on Sunday. There were several different categories and skill levels, with each having its own section of the beach. The winner clearly deserved to be the winner, as you'll see below. There were a bunch of really good ones, and a bunch that were only so-so. Some people didn't have time to finish, and you could certainly tell the difference between the amateurs and the masters. We stopped a couple of the judges and asked them about what they look for. They showed us their score sheet, which consisted of things like detail, pass-throughs (which were anything that had open space under it, like bridges or archways), and height-to-size proportion (is it way taller than it should be, or not tall enough, etc.). The judges even told me how to be a judge next year, so I'm psyched. Here ya go.