By day 8 the sand was dry enough to host a party, so arena employee Tom invited a few hardworking friends to build a very large, very flat sandcastle.

Building a sandcastle so large and so flat takes plenty of work, including bringing in the new sand…

…raking it out…

…and packing it down with a roller.

While all that hard work was happening, Tom also made sure to check the sand against the laser level to make sure all that work produced a flat surface.

Shortly after I took the above photo, Tom declared the sand base complete and packed up the level, leaving the rink ready for the next phase of the project.

That next phase will be day 9, when all that drying became a distant memory.