When I sat down to think of a few places to put on my bucket list for 2017, the first thing I wrote down was “Midway Ice Castles.” At first I felt a little foolish putting something so close to home on my bucket list. After all, I’ve lived in Utah since 2009 and Midway is only 30ish miles south east from where I live, but I never made it a priority to visit.
That all changed at the start of the year.
I’m blessed to have adventurous friends, and wasn’t surprised when my friend Ashley asked if I wanted to go to the Ice Castles. Um, YES!
We decided to go during the week for 3 reasons:
- The tickets are $4-5 cheaper M-Th
- The ice castles aren’t as crowded during the week
- We didn’t want to wait!
I guess I should also mention that we went in between winter storms, so there was a slight chance that we weren’t going to be able to make it all the way back to Midway. Fortunately, Ashley has a Subaru and it stopped snowing the morning we went!
Since our tickets weren’t until 7pm, we headed up to the Zermatt Resort for dinner, which happened to be literally across the street from the ice castles. The drive up was pretty uneventful…until we got to Midway and Ashley wanted to test her driving skills. Without giving a full play-by-play, I’ll just say that at one point we were driving sideways, completely perpendicular to the road.
After warming up with some awesome BBQ, I finally changed into my *new* ski pants…that I bought just for this! I felt a little puffy since they were like 2 sizes too big, but I was warm and dry. With temperatures threatening to drop below 0*F, I needed to make sure that I wasn’t going to become a popsicle…especially when I’m known for not wearing warm clothing.
When we finally laid eyes on the ice castles, I felt like a little kid again. My teeth ceased chattering and my imagination began to run wild. I was speechless and couldn’t stop smiling.
We weren’t the only ones visiting the ice castles, but I surely didn’t notice anyone else. Ashley and I were too busy taking pictures of each other and playing “let’s see if we can fit through that hole.”
It was such a magical place: emotionally stirring music, rainbow lights in sync with the songs, fire pits, water fountains, snow flurries. Are we in Norway or Lapland?
We finally found an elevated vista that stirred our imaginations further and made us feel like the Princesses that we are!
And princesses aren’t complete without their thrones to sit on and rule the world!
Okay, so to be honest, the seats on the thrones were a little worn down. As soon as you sat down, with or without slick material, you started to slide. Although the above picture totally fits my personality and how I would normally sit on my royal throne, that pose was necessary to keep me from sliding out of the chair!
The intent of the above picture was to have both of my legs up on the bench, but the first time I tried, I totally slid onto the ground, which is completely snowed over. I’m grabbing onto the back of the bench with one hand and pushing myself up with one of my legs. Still, I think it’s a pretty awesome shot (thanks Ashley!).
Believe it or not, we didn’t think of any Frozen jokes until we were getting ready to leave…and then we started looking for Olaf. While we didn’t find him, we know that Elsa had been by to create the ice castles.
PIN ME
