This past weekend was Plymouth’s annual ice festival.  Temperatures as low as single digits (Fahrenheit) were had, turning all of the festival-goers into moving ice sculptures.  Friday was a warm blast into the upper 30’s, which caused the sculptures to melt a bit and become cloudy as they froze again as the temps plunged on Saturday.  Luckily, there were blue skies all weekend though, which beckoned people to brave the cold and later regret it.  Late Saturday, we walked down from our neighborhood with a couple other families with kids 5 and under.  We were the only ones with a stroller for our kid (Oscar, age 4) and boy were we glad to have it!  The other parents had to carry their kids at various times – kids really too big to comfortably carry, especially in sub-freezing temps.  We made it down there, did a loop through the park and quickly returned back to our hood with kids in tow.

A side benefit of Plymouth’s many festivals is that we get a lot of out of town people driving through our neighborhood.  Some park here and walk to the fest.  This is good for real estate because it points out how close our neighborhood is to the restaurants, stores and goings on in the town of Plymouth.  Right now, we have two listings in Hough Park, our hood, and they are located on Maple Street, a street lining the block of wooded parkland which is the actual “Hough Park” within our hood.  During the Ice Fest, the feature sheets boxes we have in front of those homes were quickly depleted.  Hopefully they have not already landed in recycle bins, but are serving a higher purpose.

Today I watched as the city’s crews took away the stands from the ice sculptures that had somehow been toppled over and broken.  The rosy cheeks, hot chocolate stands, and ice sculptures will return again next January!  For now, we’ll stay warm until the mercury rises.

– Carrie