Sunset

The other night Caniece and I went down to Wall Springs Park (post about Wall Springs to come shortly) to watch the sunset ... and it turned out to be a REALLY good one so we thought we'd share a few pics (forgive the poor quality, the pic was taken with my crapball camera phone).

Sanding Ovations Masters Cup: Part 3

In Part 1 of this series we showed you the sculptors and sculptures that didn't win first prize. In Part 2 we showed you the winner and his fantastic sculpture! So now in our final installment of this series we thought it was time to toss up a few pics of the beach, venue and just a couple of our favorite event-goers!

Approaching the event from the parking lot.

To the left of the event entrance there were a few bouncy-houses.



At the South end of the event area, near the stage, there was the Landshark pirate ship (didn't see any pirates, which was a bit of a disappointment).

The stage area where a variety of bands took turns playing.

A shot looking back from the stage area towards the vendor booths.

A look down vendor alley.

And now a few pics of some of the vendor booths ...

Yep ... you read that sign right ... $55 for a painted lazy susan! We about fell over!

And now a few pics of some of the foods stands on premises ...

And finally a few of the funniest people we saw ...

When I saw this guy I thought "This is what Ron Pearlman would look like if he were from Denmark". Not sure how many people this will actually tickle, but I laughed my head off about it.

This has to be one of the better kiddie leashes out there. An animal backpack with a tail long enough to serve as a leash ... LOL 

I think that everyone who saw this lady kicked themselves and thought "I can't believe I forgot to wear my fur lined boots to this 95 degree beach event."

And the bright orange woman in the middle of this shot was my event MVP. On top of being carrot orange she kept somehow managing to fall out of her baithing suit. Bravo!

Sanding Ovations Masters Cup: Part 2

Yesterday we showed you all of the sand sculptures that didn't win first prize ... so today we're showing you the one that did!

The winner's name is Jan Selen and he's from Amsterdam, Netherlands (you can read more about him here), and in my humble opinion, the judges definitely got it right!!! While there were a lot of really good sculptures/sculptors at the event, Caniece and I spent far and away more time looking at his sculpture then anyone else's.

Hopefully you guys like it as much as we (and the judges) did!!!

(And as is always the case, if you want to see larger versions of the pics, just click on them.)

Jan had a sizeable audience around his work area the whole day ... and it's not hard to see why! How could you not love seeing a bunch of pudgy little naked guys sitting on blocks!?!?

Unlike the sand figures, Jan was wearing pants, thankfully. Although, you have to admit, the top of the butt cracks showing is pretty classic.

This is one of the few times we saw Jan standing up ... I'm not sure how some of the more "senior" folks on the sand sculpting circuit do it. Seems like sand sculptors would have knees like catchers by the time they're 35.

Even though they're all pretty uniform, we thought it was really fun that each little guy was slightly different from the rest. For example, the guy in the forefront of this pic appears to have excellent posture despite either slight lower spine scoliosis or just a heavily square upper backside? Fun details. :) 

The facial expressions are equally unique and fun to look at.

And I think this pic really sums up the whole scuplture well. You have a bunch of very similar little guys sitting on their blocks and in the far right corner you see an empty block with leg and bottom grooves and footprints in the sand leading away from it. Not a whole lot more to say other then it's just cool!

Sanding Ovations Masters Cup: Part 1

Back in November the annual Sanding Ovations Masters Cup sand sculpting competition took place at Treasure Island Beach and Caniece and I popped on down to check it out.

We took a TON of pics so we're going to break this up into three posts ... the first will contain pics of the sand sculptures and sculptors themselves, minus the winner. The second will be pics of the winner and his sculpture. And finally the third will just be a few pics of the beach, the venue and a few of the "special" people you'd expect (hope, really) to see at an all day, outdoor beach event.

So without further adu ...