Given the travel restrictions, I didn’t visit many castles during our last 18 months in Germany. Then again, once you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all.

Tourists don’t feel that way of course. Living in Germany, with a ruined castle on every second hill, I quickly reached the point where castles lost their appeal. Seen one, seen them all. Today though, a different castle, more in keeping with my present loacation and situation.

There is increased talk that the Canada-US border, closed since March 2020, will soon be reopened. Which means that my summer vacation in Maine may happen as scheduled.

News reports have American officials pushing for the reopening, while Canadian politicians are reluctant. As we have seen in the past year, they have difficulty with the concept of allowing people to make their own choices as to acceptable risk. Or maybe they just don’t believe that the vaccinations they said we must have in order to return to normal life are of any real value.

In the hopes that once again I will be able to spend some time on my favorite beach, today a photo essay of a sand castle.

I built a lot of sand castles when my children were young, but none recently. There isn’t the same incentive. But I do appreciate the efforts of others.

I took these pictures while walking along Old Orchard Beach in August 2015. And I do have some German castle pictures still to share, but I’m saving those for another day.