Remember the days when ice cream vendors came to your neighborhood with their smoky ice cream chests filled with all those delicious ice cream bars? You'd pick out your favorite ice cream Popsicle or ice cream sandwich and watch in amazement at how cold and smoky the ice chest stayed even on a hot summers day.

There's nothing better than dry ice to keep ice cream frozen and to help when shipping frozen perishables through the mail. Dry ice isn't at all like the ice we make when freezing water however. Water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit while dry ice which is actually composed of carbon dioxide gas has a freezing temperature of -109 degrees Fahrenheit. Therefore when dry ice thaws it turns into a vapor of gas and doesn't get wet and leave a watery mess like regular ice does.

Where can I buy dry ice? The answer is as close as your nearest ice cream store or ice cream company. Ice cream companies need lots of dry ice to keep their great tasting products frozen and ready for consumption. Dry ice is a very important part of delivering and distributing ice cream to stores and ice cream parlors around the country and ice cream companies will sell you dry ice at a reasonable price.

Another great place for buying dry ice is your local ice making company or any ice making distributor in your town. Dry ice can be purchased by the block and you must use gloves and bring along a metal container to transport your dry ice home in. Because of the very cold freezing point of dry ice your skin can actually get burned like frost bite upon contact.

To find the closet establishment to purchase dry ice in your area you can look in your local telephone directory or get on line and type dry ice into any of the computer search engines available. You will actually find directories of all of the local companie's phone numbers and addresses that make and sell dry ice in your city or town on line.