The ice rink at Acacia Park

For the second year in a row, Experience Downtown has added a seasonal ice skating rink to Acacia Park, just like last year! The Grand Opening was on Friday at 4:00pm, with the mayor and his wife there to cut the ribbon. Members of the US Figure Skating team were on hand to give a performance, and the Doherty High School hockey team was there to coach people on how to ice skate. And I was there too, cameras at the ready. Alas, sometime earlier in the afternoon, the "freezer" apparently broke, causing the ice to become too soft for skating. Never mind that in the preceding days the temperature never got above about 8° F -- on Friday we actually made it into the upper 30s, which was enough to cause the ice to become unsafe. Too bad! So there was a ribbon cutting ceremony and some nice speeches, but alas no figure skating performance, and no one was allowed onto the ice. Thankfully the mechanism was quickly repaired, and yesterday I dropped by to see if anyone was out on the ice. I fully expected to see a bunch of people just trying not to fall down, but there was one lady out there who was obviously an expert skater. She was pirouetting and twirling and clearly having a great time. I took a few pictures and then had a chance to chat with her. Her name was Nicole, and she told me that she had been a competitive skater, then a professional with Disney on Ice. Wow! I asked her to do a spin for my camera. She protested that it'd been a couple of years since she's been out on the ice, but she executed a perfect spin and did a few more graceful turns, smiling all the while. She was awesome! For me, it's always such a pleasure to watch a person doing what they love!

The ice skating rink will be in place through January 11th, and you really should get down there and give it a try! It looks like so much fun! (Personally I haven't ice skated since high school, so I guess I'll go too.) And if you go on Saturday, December 20th, Olympic figure skater Rachael Flatt will be there showing her stuff. You can bet I'll be there with my camera in hand.

And on a completely different note -- today is my blog's sixth birthday! My first post was on November 17, 2008. Hard to believe six years have gone by so quickly! I have thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the the City Daily Photo blogging community. Happy birthday Colorado Springs Daily Photo!

Here's Nicole mid-spin.

Here's an animated GIF showing the beginning of her spin. Wow! She's great! (And just looking at this makes me a little dizzy!)

You should definitely make it down to the park for some ice skating this season!