Ice Castle

Last year near the end of winter I heard about Ice Castles. There was one not too far from where we live in Maine located in New Hampshire. Unfortunately, I heard about it too close to their closing for the season so we weren't able to go. I was determined to make it there this year.

Today was the very cold day we went. Actually, I shouldn't complain all that much as it was above zero. However, we did have to go inside about half-way through our visit to warm up. It was worth it though.

We arrived about an hour after they opened. There weren't a lot of people there yet and we were able to head right in to the castle. No lines. No waiting. It was impressive in the daytime, but I did want to stick around until dusk as they light it up at night. 

Here are some of my favorite daytime shots:

This crevice was small! The little guys could walk straight through, but my middle kiddo had to go through sideways. I don't do small, tight, confined spaces. I opted to take photos instead.

I couldn't stop looking up. The icicles coming down in some spots were so impressive!

My middle son hamming it up.

Catching the sunset

This structure was massive.

Here's some perspective as to how big it really is - those two kids there are my youngest and his friend. My youngest is about five feet tall.

After our toes became a bit numb and after my kids hurt themselves on the super fast luge-like slide/tunnel in the middle of the structure, we headed inside for a bit of a warm up. They had a TV with two videos playing. One was of Lindsey Stirling playing her violin in an Ice Castle structure and the other was The Piano Guys (that's how I found out about these things). In case you haven't seen either one, here they are...

After we warmed up, we headed back outside to see if the lights were coming on. They were! So very cool. It was worth the over six hours in the truck today driving to New Hampshire and back. 

Here are my favorite shots from when the lights started to come on:

The lights were just starting to come on.

This was a working water fountain. The lights flashed and changed. This was taken just as it was starting to go dark.

Same fountain. Photo taken just before we left.

All photos were taken with my Android phone. Really wish I had some "smart-phone" gloves. My hands were pretty cold! I would take off one glove, snap some photos, put my glove back on and warm up my hand, miss some shots, and repeat the process throughout the whole time we were there. But like I said earlier, it was well worth it.