Day two of the Single Block competition. A day for the imagination. The sculptures are progressing, but for the most part they are still not recognizable in reference to their names. In fact, the only shape I could identify was “maybe” a fish. Tomorrow we will see the magic come to life. The forest felt different today. The Single Block has only one carver working on one block of ice so the atmosphere is rather quiet but still busy. 

The park area is very busy today. There are many visitors flying down the slides and playing ping pong. Youth! I noticed one young girl coming down a slide on her knees! Ouch! One of the most popular playground equipment is the Spinner. There are several and today they are all spinning, fast. Give a push and you go “round and round”. 

In the Warm Up Building there is a guest book for visitors to sign. And sign they have. There have been visitors from just about every state in The United States. I read comments from every state on the East Coast except Maine and New Jersey; every state on the West Coast and Hawaii and almost every state in between. Visitors from Buffalo, the Bronx and New York City all commented “Wow, amazing”. Visitors from California, Wisconsin, Vermont, Minnesota and Louisiana all said “worth the cold and can’t wait to come again”. Someone from Ohio said, “cold but pretty!” There were other fun comments. A visitor from Arizona said, “Wowzers” and one from Texas said, “Phenomenal Artistry”. 

There were visitors from other countries also, all impressed with our ice and breathtaking sculptures. One visitor from Australia said, “Wow!” A visitor from Switzerland said, “Groovy!” We have had visitors from Ireland, Japan, Singapore, Bulgaria and Moldovia. They will all go home with tales and photographs, and most of all, wonderful memories of Fairbanks, Alaska and the World Ice Art Championships.

*Ice Education for today: a volunteer just challenged me. “How do the sculptors attach two pieces of ice together. I thought maybe they melted the ends and stuck them together. Nope, he said. They use Ice Glue. Of course I asked what Ice Glue is made of. Water. There are barrels of water that are kept at temperatures just at or just above freezing. The “warm” water is added, the pieces are pressed together, the water freezes immediately and the two sections are glued together.

The Single Blocks competition ends at 9:00PM tomorrow. Come visit then and hear as the horn is blown.