The Frozen Post

On Wednesday, Sarah and I headed down to Gaylord Palms Convention Center to check out the last day if Ice! a walk-through ice sculpture exhibit. The convention center was kept at a very chilly 9 degrees in order to sustain the massive sculptures on display, so they issued all guests a big, blue knee length parka to keep you warm during the tour (though no gloves unfortunately). The sculptures where amazing and ranged from cute animal carvings to massive buildings you could walk through. There was an ice wall for touching right at the beginning so people could get the urge to mess with the ice out of their systems, as touching/licking and climbing on the exhibit was not allowed. There where ice slides though that you could go down that where pretty impressive, even if they did make your feet soggy. Some of the stuff looked like it was molded plastic, but sure enough it was 100% ice. The ice blocks making up some of the large structures where massive and incredibly impressive. Colored ice was used in interesting ways to make some of the displays really pop, which was pretty cool and something I’d not seen before.
After the exhibit we wandered around the Gaylord hotel and got some hot chocolate. Very impressive place, with a massive atrium, indoor rock sculptures and all kinds of cool stuff. Sarah was particularly impressed with the gator display. Very nice place. We plan on going back sometime for a meal at one of the restaurants to see everything in non-Christmas attire and in the daylight.