Vacation Day 7 & Seagulls

Well this is obviously quite after the fact, but our last day of vacation was HOT! Indy learned how true it is that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. She calls the cliche by another name...SEAGULLS ARE STUPID!!!!

We spent the whole day at the beach and it was a hot one. Indy built a sand castle with plans to adorn it with all the stale pretzels, chips, gold fish etc., and watch the seagulls destroy it in a big swarm of gluttony. She worked on it for hours. She got soooo sandy it was making me squirm. Indy must have spent a good hour on the foundation alone, another hour on the moat, since she was using a very puny yellow plastic shovel meant for a 2 yr old. You know how a little music can make the job go by faster? Well, while we were boogie boarding, Gib and I came up with new words to How Firm A Foundation (Ye Sand Castle) and after laughing our heads off in the ocean with glee imagining her reaction came in to sing it to her. She really didn't appreciate it at all. (Not even the best part about high tide and low. I thought that was a masterful verse.) We loved it. Anyway, back to the story, Indy decorated the moat with goldfish, the interior with bbq chips, the towers with pretzels. Mariah even sacrificed an oreo and crumbled some on top of the towers. It was a beautiful work of art ready for feasting. I'll search thru the 900 photos and post it when I find it.

Then we sat and waited, And waited. And waited. Oooh! A seagull! And it flew right on by. There was a bunch of seagulls down the beach and it was frustrating the heck out of Indy that somebody else fed them before her castle was done and now they weren't leaving until every last freaking crumb was gone over there! People were packing up and leaving, but no, we were still there. The umbrella man came and collected his chairs and umbrella, and we were still there. Finally, oh about an hour later, one gull spotted it. He got a nearby pretzel and next thing you know several of his friends appeared out of thin air. But, they were too scared of the castle to demolish it going after the food. They'd hover above it, but wouldn't land inside or on top of the towers as intended. We were bitterly disappointed. So Indy knocked down some of the interior towers so the gulls could land inside easier. That didn't work. So we knocked down all the towers. They sat in the water a few feet away. We stared at them. They stared at us. The rest of the family left, but Indy and I waited it out, broiling and risking sunburn, until the bitter end. Sometimes the gulls would venture in for a pitifully frightened attempt to get a beakful of bbq chips (their fave) but that was it. Throughout the two hours we spent watching gulls NOT EAT Indy kept muttering "Seagulls are so STUPID!!!"

P.S. We decided that the next morning I would go out and see if they were just waiting for us to leave, and see how much high tide washed away of the sand castle. Oh, that would be NOTHING! So there was all this food everywhere. Which we giggled about the day before happening, but really didn't think it would. So I very casually started toeing all the chips and pretzels into the goldfish moats. Good thing Indy spent so long on them and made them 3" deep. I filled up all 4 sides and then covered with sand. Then I smoothed sand over all the remaining pretzels on the surface as much as possible. When I was done you'd be hard pressed to find any food, but I sure hope some family didn't arrive later that day and see this perfect square and go, "Wow! This is a great foundation for a sand castle!" and start digging!!!