An Ice Day Trip

Here I Go

• Step out onto the ice and glide.

• “Please don’t fall,” said my inner voice. It’s been a while since I’ve worn ice skates.

• Bend knees a little and stand just a tad forward.  

• Turn trailing right skate 45 degrees, gently push and glide on left skate.

• Bring right skate parallel to gliding left skate.

• Keep gliding a moment.

• Now push off with left skate, glide and bring skate back to gliding right skate.

• I’m skating, I’m skating, and I didn’t fall on my caboose, yet.

It All Seems So Easy When You’re Young

A new skater takes to the ice. Her gleeful, high-pitched squeals echo off the surrounding buildings. In her skates, a preschool aged girl with rosy cheeks moves across the ice in a running fashion. Soon, her natural sense of balance will improve enough that she’ll be gliding with little effort. Another Tessa Virtue perhaps? For now, Mom stays close at hand to assist her back to her feet when she tumbles to the ice. It’s fun slipping, sliding, and making ice angels today.

The Rink

This day trip has taken me to the Quaker Foods City Square in Peterborough, Ontario.  In winter, the family friendly area converts from a summer water park to a refrigerated outdoor skating rink. Admission is free.

On this morning, I arrived just before the park opened for the day. I was just in time to watch the Zamboni finish preparing the ice surface. Getting to be the first to carve up this fresh sheet of ice was a treat.

Fun Fact:

According to Guinness World Records (2014) the 30 km long Windermere Whiteway in Invermere, British Columbia, Canada is the longest ice-skating trail in the world.

When I Was So Much Younger

When I was five years old, I received my first pair of ice skates for Christmas.  I was stubbornly determined to take to the ice with my new skates. I pulled them on and like so many new and young skaters I laced them up too loosely. Flopping on my ankles on a frozen backyard puddle, I held a small tree branch that was my hockey stick with a rock substituting for a puck. There I was, the next Jean Beliveau on my tiny rink.

Have You Been Ice Skating?

Anyone else have early ice-skating experiences or are you older now and more like Frankenstein on ice?