10,000 Hours of Drip Castles

Drip Castles with ATTITUDE

Rank amateurs. At left, see a REAL drip castle, including an arch (with no cheating involved).

Every summer, growing up, we'd spend a substantial amount of time at Fuller's Clear Lake Campground, near Buchanan, Michigan. It was magical. I can't think how many hundreds of hours I spent, with my back to the Sun in the late afternoon, making castle, after castle, after castle. And invariably, the moment I walked away, some 10-year-old fascists would mercilessly stomp it flat, on the general principle that a sandcastle that obviously superior was easily impudent enough to merit annihilation.

Doomed to destruction in 10, 9, 8, 7 . . .

I'd spend hours at a time, becoming blonder and more tanned, while making suspended arches (with no cheating, of course), moats, courtyards, flying buttresses, and annoyingly tall and pointy towers. I still do this, and every time, I end up surrounded by a small cadre of kids wanting to learn how to make drip castles. At their best, they look like fairy castles in winter, with evergreens weighed down with heavy snow, or deep forests of Christmas trees, or elven retreats where Frodo might have visited on his way to Mount Doom.

Fuller's Clear Lake is now owned by dear friends of the family, who have been working tirelessly to restore and build up the place to make it as wonderful as it was when I was a little kid. I don't get there often enough, and I owe my children some more memories there.

Found on Wired, the Geek Dad blog. http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/10/fun-at-the-beach-drip-castles/trackback/