Okay, you guys don't laugh when I fall flat on my behind.

But I'm trying something new today.

We're over in Elkhart at the Nipco Water and Ice Park, and there is no ice around right now.

We are at the temperatures are like in the hundreds, and we're giving roller skating a try here today.

Yep.

It's been a long time since I've been in skates.

Glad you are.

It's like riding a bike with me.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

My pleasure.

You have rollerblades on.

So I'm assuming you kind of know what you're doing here.

At least I do.

And I special ordered roller blades for people like me because I said not everyone's going to want to skate.

Some of us rollerblade it in the 90s, and I'm not switching, you know.

You know, we got to have you got to do what?

You know, I do not know how to stop.

So you'll have to hold my hand if we like, move along.

We have these helpers if you need it.

So it should be amazing to see.

Okay.

That's great.

So tell us about this because you said this part is only two years old.

People have been ice skating here for a lot longer than that.

What went into the decision to make the transition into this as summer activity as well?

Yeah, so it was always designed to be featured as a roller rink as well.

And we had talked about why we hadn't in the past shifted over to the summer facility.

And what it really came down to was logistics and popularity.

We didn't think people would really be about it, and there really started to be a trend over the last five years to ten years around the country of roller skating is just making a comeback.

And we said, let's just try it.

And honestly, last year was really slow, okay?

Because it takes some time for people to understand.

But as you look around in the afternoon on a bunch of random Thursday, it's catching on, right?

So it's been a lot of fun.

It is.

So you guys have a couple different options so people can rent roller skates.

Can they bring their own as well?

Yeah.

The main driver here is not profit, believe it or not, it's health and wellness.

So if people bring their skates they bring their scooters.

We don't have an issue with that if we make some profit, fantastic.

But our goal is to get people out, get them active and have fun.

And so that's exactly what this facility is about.

And it's great because you guys already have the facility behind us where people can rent their ice skates to do so.

It's just a matter of transitioning for the year, which means that these are fairly new skates.

Yes.

Yeah.

Which is great for those people who are like me and haven't been in a long time.

I'm not going to be too wobbly on some older skates.

Everything's tight, you know, fitted for you.

So it's great.

I love no excuses.

Okay, so a couple options for you there.

When do you guys open.

Because this is like when did you open the season.

We opened in May and we plan to keep it open until October at least.

And we're open every day.

Every day.

And anybody I mean, there's not a park so people can come in here at any time to on their own.

Right?

Yeah, yeah.

What we really have seen wasn't me.

Wasn't me.

What we've really seen is the splash pad utilized quite a bit during the summer.

And so you'll have this healthy mix now of people who will come and skate.

You'll have people who come in picnic, you'll have kids who play in the splash pad.

You'll have kids who are riding through.

You see people on date night.

You see kids having fun.

It's a really great time.

And the best part is, is if you rent the skates, you don't have to stay here.

You can skate up and down the Riverwalk, which is a lot of fun.

How far does that Riverwalk go?

Because that's pretty far.

You can go down to Johnson Streets and then all the way up you can be off road and on the Riverwalk all the way up to height.

I've park.

Okay, so for people like me, how many seats hills are there?

That's one way.

And you don't have to.

You don't have to go down the hill.

You could walk up the stairs and go across the street, or you can go down, but that's underneath the Jackson Street Bridge.

It's a little steep there.

Okay.

But you guys do have some.

What are those called?

They're helpers.

Yeah.

Skate helpers.

Skate helpers.

That's what they're called.

Yeah.

Technical.

Right.

All right, let's move a little bit.

You're gonna call my family.

I got you, all right, all right, you ready?

So I think what you'll find is it is really like riding a bike where you start to get in the rhythm and you're like, oh, this isn't as hard as I thought it would be.

Again, I never learned how to stop.

Ever heard how to stop?

So we'll just stop with stop.

Skates are hard, though.

That's what I like about you.

Just have to curve.

So.

Yeah.

So rollerblades because you can suck.

You can stop on the back, on the front.

It feels so foreign to me, you know, like that doesn't feel safe.

Cause a brother, your break is in the back on one side, right?

Right.

There's why you're asking for a big help here.

Thank you.

I'm going to end up running Kelsey over.

I got you.

So the Riverwalk is right here, too?

Yeah.

So you can you can come over to Central Park.

You can park there.

You can park on the other side here.

You can access each area.

We just instituted a Dora Outdoor district, allowing you to grab a beer from a company.

We've got a great brewery right next to us, Brass Elk.

And so you can have a beer, you can walk off along the Riverwalk.

You can go all throughout on town, maybe take your roller skates off first.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, I mean, it's there's a lot of fun opportunity to explore and enjoy the Riverwalk on a number of fronts.

Now, when is the renting available during the day because that's a set our right.

Yeah.

11 to 11 to nine most days.

Weekends are till ten okay.

But you also have events happening here too right.

Because you want to come.

You want them to come experience this and they can experience it in many different ways.

So let's talk a little bit about those.

What have you done in the past.

So historically Summertime Events is always our third Friday Summer chill concert series okay.

And so we'll have a band out here and they overtake the rink and it's a lot of fun.

We'll have brass Elk serve burgers and beer out of here.

We've got people who some of our farmers market people will come and sell things.

So we do that every every third Friday of the season, okay, between May and September.

And then on occasion we'll do skate nights, we'll do DJ skate nights, we'll have youth programs, we have a teen take over night.

We have a date night.

Wait, what is the teen age for that one?

I think it's 14 up, 14 and up.

Okay.

All right.

So we have an option for them to because again like you said, it's becoming more popular to get back and roller skate.

And I think that's kind of important.

You know looking back into the wellness aspect and finding other an alternative ways for kids to get outside and enjoy the outdoors.

Really.

Yeah.

Yeah, there's I mean, if you look at the research, it's becoming worse and worse for getting kids off of iPads and even adults ourselves.

We're so touched with the screens, whether it's the tablet of cell phone or a TV, it is exacerbated a lot of issues for folks.

And so our biggest focus right now is how do we get people out and how do we get them active.

But it also allows them to connect with their neighbors and meet the community members.

And so it just builds a more vibrant community.

Yeah.

And this has been around I mean, this entire space has been around almost 20 years now, right?

Yeah.

2007, you know, how have you found people received that over this time because they have continued to use it more and more over the years with that?

People love it.

I mean, this is I think this saves a lot of people for winter because you get into such a slump of the winter season.

It's so long.

So having something like this in the downtown area that brings in economic, you know, strings to the downtown region, but also getting people outside to enjoy themselves when it's all gray is is neat.

I love that and I, I'm already sweating out here.

Yeah.

It's a splash pad is here too right.

Yep yep.

Yeah.

We have the splash pad in 2007 when this was designed by JPR, pushed in for the splash pad, a lot of kids have been using that.

It's free, it's open to the public, and it was kind of a hidden gem for a while.

People didn't really know it was here.

You had to kind of be in the know.

And so we pushed really hard to say no.

Now you see that letting people know to get out and experience it, I love that.

Well, that's what we're doing here and experience Michiana.

We're experiencing things.

That's right.

And experiencing something I haven't done in many years.

I know you guys can come out here to enjoy some of this roller skating time.

Rollerblading, rollerblading, most of you do.

Where can people get pricing and all the other details about the events that you guys have going on?

Anything that we do, we post on our website, City of Elkhart Parks and Rec page.

We also do have heavily promote on Facebook, which is a very easy way.

We also make it really easy for folks to message us and interact with us so that they can get the information.

Awesome.

All right.

Are you ready to go again?

Let's go.

All right, here we go.

Just like riding a bike does.

Like you said, he's riding a bike.

That would be easier.

Yeah, riding it in and out of the splash pad.