During a recent vacation to a nearby national park, we parked ourselves on a secluded lake complete with a shallow, sandy creek. We thought we'd have the place to ourselves, but before too long, the skimboarders arrived. We'd never seen a skimboard before, but by the end of our vacation we realized that no matter what beach we visited, we'd be audience to this hot, new craze.

A skimboard is kind of like a surfboard, but much shorter and wider and very, very thin. The skimboarders we saw searched out shallow, sandy shorelines. They sprinted a short distance with their boards, dropped it, and immediately hopped on. From what I could tell, successful runs meant gliding across the water and maybe doing a turn or two. Unsuccessful runs meant hitting the water, sometimes in a very uncomfortable looking way!

The kids, teens, and young adults we saw were huffing and puffing after several runs, so I can only surmise that skimboarding is good exercise. New skimboards go for anywhere from $150-$250, but the boarders at our beach were selling used boards for $25 and giving tourists a chance to try the sport out.