Friday, February 12, 2016

The Valent-ICE Festival

When the weather forecast calls for sub-freezing temperatures with occasional snow and 17 mph winds, I usually stay inside as much as possible. But I spent an hour or so outside today, so I could check out the Valent-ICE Festival in downtown Grand Rapids.
Of course, Ice Yoda was my favorite.
The festival has several different events: ice skating, happy hours, live ice carving, and so on. Other than watching the ice skaters for a few minutes, I didn't attend any of that. I did walk around downtown to look at the ice carvings, though. There are quite a few, mostly in front of the businesses that sponsored the festival. I took pictures of most of the ones I saw.
This one is in front of the Van Andel arena, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.
They certainly picked the right time to hold an ice sculpting festival! It was really cold, but there's lots of places to step inside for a moment to warm up. I especially appreciated the downtown pedestrian bridge, which I used to walk a few blocks without exposure to the elements.
This building sculpture was fittingly placed at an architecture firm.
I had a good time checking out all the ice art. Once a year is plenty for walking around outside in this kind of winter weather, though!