Ice Castles in Stillwater, Minnesota (A Winter Evening in Stillwater)

This evening Noelle, Sierra and I braved the snow covered roads and heavy traffic to visit the Ice Castles at Lowell Park in Downtown Stillwater, Minnesota. I had some slight reservations about visiting such a touristy place, but Sierra's enjoyment of the place (along with mine and Noelle's) made our visit very worthwhile. It didn't hurt that the visitation was light, given that we were visiting on a Monday evening.

Our entrance was valid for the 4:00 to 4:30 entrance. I had timed it that way on purpose so that we would be able to see the ice in daylight, as well as lit up at night. We checked in and headed into a hallway made of ice.

It really reminded me of Noelle's and my days working at Carlsbad Caverns, but instead of stalactites, the place was decorated with ice. Noelle visited with Olaf,

and then Sierra and I checked out a cool little dome.

From the dome we headed into the maze. There were crawling passages,

as well as tight walking ones.

There was even a cool view of the Stillwater Lift Bridge!

Next we headed over to the small ice slide. Sierra really enjoyed the small ice slide.

She must have gone down it at least 30 times. Noelle and I also went down the small ice slide.

We even got a few family photos of everyone on the slide at the same time.

We all took turns going down the large slide also. This slide was enclosed in ice with lights that turned the ice different colors. Sierra desperately wanted to slide down the ice slide while the lights were green, but I don't think there were green lights at the slide. She still went down about 6 times, a few by herself.
We spent the rest of the time making our way through the Ice Castles again, this time in the dark.
It was really cool to see the formations lit up in different colors.

Among the attractions was an ice well that had lights inside that changed colors.

Eventually we decided it was time to leave.

We hadn't eaten dinner yet and were starting to get hungry. I would say we all had a great visit to the Ice Castles.

From reviews that I've read, it seems like going during the week, as opposed to the weekends, is the way to go. It's not as crowded and smaller crowds offered more opportunities for using the slides and exploring.