Blog for June 25, 2017

The time has arrived for us to go home……..

Well, blog fans, our remaining time in Calgary is drawing rapidly to a close; only a few more days. With many of the things we do comes the realization that we won’t be doing it again or won’t be seeing it again. Today at Church, for example, we had to say goodbye to many wonderful people, many of whom we may never see again. We know we will be returning for a visit from time to time but things and circumstances rarely remain the same.

Yesterday I returned once again to one of my favorite spots, the Glenmore Reservoir Trail. The day was fresh and fragrant and the temperature was perfect for a nice relaxed run. I will attach some pictures I took along the way including deer and lots of wild roses.

I would say how much I will miss the beautiful areas available here and the wonderful trails and scenery to be enjoyed, but then I think ahead to the Dimple Dell trails, Bell Canyon, and other sites which are so near our home. Suddenly I feel better about returning. 

Dimple Dell Trail (Sandy, Utah)

Given how hot it has been in Utah, we know we will miss the daily temperature in the 70s and low 80s we have known the past two summers.

With our departure just days away, we will miss Canada Day (July 1^st) and the Calgary Stampede (July 7-16), which is already gearing up. Instead we will get to enjoy the 4^th of July celebration with friends and family at home and that will be nice.

We are busy training our replacements, Elder and Sister McNary. They had their “baptism of fire” this past week with the arrival of new missionaries, the departure of others, and the process of transferring missionaries north and south as described in earlier blogs. Otherwise the training involves sitting at a desk reviewing all facets of the job, which for them must be somewhat like drinking from a fire hose. They are coming along nicely and will do well.

Since last week was transfer week, we were able to say goodbye to many of our missionaries. The highlight of our mission has been to interact with them as they serve. They are such an outstanding group of young men and women. They arrive with such diverse talents, interests, and capabilities. It is amazing to consider that the missionaries we see here are but a cross section of young people serving in all of the missions of the Church. Regardless of background, missions provide wonderful opportunities to grow and learn in ways that would not otherwise be realized. Most importantly, missionaries grow spiritually. As they teach gospel principles to others, they learn to apply these same principles more completely to themselves. I know from my own mission experience as a young man how much better prepared I was to meet the challenges of life, of faith, of family, and career. Fortunately, we are Facebook friends with many of our missionaries who have returned home and that will be true for those still serving. It is wonderful to see them moving on with their lives after returning home. I see the same blessings in their lives that I realized from having served a mission.

So, this is it, - the great winding up scene. Thanks for sharing in our experiences.

In closing, please enjoy some scenes from the Sefcik’s neighborhood lake and park where we had a wonderful picnic with them.

Have a wonderful week!

We are in countdown mode......

Blog for June 18, 2017

Wow, we are in countdown mode……..! We have just one more Sunday remaining in Calgary.

Last Sunday, after posting my blog, Kathy and I decided to go out and check off another item on our bucket list. We had heard many times of the incredible view of downtown, which can be viewed from the Crescent View Ward building. The building sits up on a bluff above the Bow River just to the north of downtown. The view was well worth the visit as you can see in the following picture.

Crescent View and 6th Ward Building, Confederation Park Stake

This picture was taken around 9:30 p.m. (which tells you how late the sun goes down is these northern parts). Afterward we drove around the neighborhood and were amazed at the very beautiful and very well cared for older homes in the area. Then we headed for the Calgary Stake Center on the west side of Calgary and took a picture of the downtown area from that vantage point. The sun was just setting at that point. 

The building is the Calgary Stake Center, which was built during the time President N. Eldon Tanner was Stake President here. It is huge as our church buildings go. 

Calgary Stake Center

This has been a very busy week as we had much to do to get everything ready for Elder and Sister McNary’s arrival (see below) and to set out the plan for meeting the new missionaries who will be arriving this Wednesday. The usual schedule for arriving and departing missionaries has changed somewhat so this required a bit more planning than usual. This is followed, as usual, by the transfer day, which involves hauling 18-20 missionaries south to Lethbridge and returning with an equal number. This will be the last trip I will take to Lethbridge until a possible return for a visit in the future.

Adding to the busy mix of things to be done was the sale of the last few cars remaining in our fleet. I am saving one car, which we will hopefully sell tomorrow, so that Elder McNary will have at least some exposure to what is involved with car sales.

I also met with some officials from Alberta Registries, the equivalent of the DMV in the states. We have been encouraged by the Church to begin the process of our missionaries getting Alberta driver’s licenses in advance of this becoming a requirement. Since our missionaries serve for 18-24 months, and do not have a clearly defined legal status for being in Canada; i.e., they are not here on a work visa, nor a visitor visa (limited to 6 months), and they aren’t students); therefore, a plan for how to facilitate this with the various Registry offices is important. The meeting was highly successful and so the process will begin soon for missionaries to get their licenses. This will occur in smallish groups so that the Registries do not become overwhelmed. The Registries serve a much smaller area than do DMV facilities in the States so there are several in each of the larger communities. I think I mentioned some of the details for licenses and visas in my last blog, so enough said. The reality, however, for making this happen will fall to Elder McNary (Yay!).

Adding to the mix of things dealt with during the week was getting a call from our Mission President on Thursday morining informing us that they had just been in a serious accident. On their way to some meetings in Lethbridge, they suddenly came upon an accident which had occurred just ahead of them. They were able to slow to avoid the accident but just behind them was a large cattle truck which didn’t stop in time and collided into the back end of the President’s new Toyota Highlander. Fortunately no one was injured in either vehicle (I don’t know about the initial accident). Since the Highlander remained at least drivable, I met them part way and exchanged it for one of our old Chevy Cruze vehicles which they have had to use for their travels since. We have a larger rental vehicle arranged for them, which I will pick up in the morning.

And now a word about our replacements, the McNarys. They arrived yesterday afternoon. We were able to meet them at the office where we showed them around and then they followed us to the home where they will be living. It is the same home where the Peppingers lived while they served here. We helped move their things in from their SUV, which was understandably packed to the gills!. The McNarys are wonderful and will be very capable. Elder McNary retired recently as the campus planner at the University of Utah, and he is indeed a car guy as was evident by his well-used tool box. Sister McNary is a former pre-school teacher. Both are very personable and will be a great addition to the office staff. Tomorrow evening the whole office staff, both old and new, will meet for dinner as the Sefcik’s and the Thorley’s missions draw to a close. More about this next week when we put out our last mission blog.

To close this blog, I will include a number of pictures of our missionaries who were also present at stake conference today. We will miss them all so much.

Sisters Schnebly, Amaller, Burnside, Hatch. Us. Elders Ibanez, Tate, DelMolino, Cartwright, Fox, and Hewlett

Sisters Burnside, Thorley, and Hatch

Sisters Amaller, Thorley, Schnebly

And finally, a shot someone took of Kathy and I......

Have a wonderful week!

Blog for the week of June 11, 2017

One last return trip to Banff/Canmore…….at least for now. We'll be back!

Elder and Sister Gardiner at Canmore 

We never get tired of returning to the beautiful Banff area. Our wonderful friends, the Gardiners, are serving there as senior missionaries in a leadership support role. They were away during our last visit so last evening we arranged to meet them for dinner. We had a wonderful visit that lasted well beyond finishing our meal. We noted there was a loud group there when we first entered the restaurant so we asked for a quiet spot so we could visit and they placed us back in a room by ourselves and did not bug us at all even though we were clearly finished eating.

The truck (see last week’s pictures) is now completely fixed. A replacement gas tank was installed during the week. To understand why, you will need to remember that the tank was punctured at the same time as the theft of the wheels. Since the truck repairs are completed, it needed a real test drive so we decided to drive it to Banff. Prior to our trip it had been raining rather heavily in the region, but the forecast called for rain ending toward evening and, as we made our drive west, it began to clear. Upon arrival in Canmore where we met the Gardiners, we were treated to a beautiful wintery scene as the Banff mountains have a fresh coating of snow. The rivers are all running at capacity as the snowmelt occurs and now there will be even more snow to melt and run downstream.

We are starting to pack the things we will not need between now and the time we return home, especially all our winter gear. Since we anticipate buying the truck, we are hoping we will not need to rent a trailer to haul our stuff home. The smallest of the U-Haul enclosed trailers was needed for our initial trip to Calgary. With that in mind, as soon as the money transfer has been completed for the purchase, I plan to have a cover installed over the truck box so our things will be out of the weather for the trip home. Between the truck (a crew cab) and our Santa Fe SUV, hopefully everything will fit.

We are anxiously awaiting our replacements, the McNarys, who should arrive at the end of next week. There is much to show them before our departure. Fortunately, they will arrive in time to experience the planning and execution of what is involved with a transfer week. Perhaps we will delay selling the last couple of cars so Elder McNary can see how this is done. Having no more cars to sell for a while will be a blessing for him so he can focus on all the other aspects of the job. As I may have mentioned in a past blog, missionaries serving in Canada who are not from Canada are being required to get and keep a driver’s license for the province where they serve. We will launch this process very soon but the bulk of it will fall to Elder McNary and anyone in the office who is available to help with this. This will require meeting the qualifying missionaries, one group at a time, at a local Registry. Registry is like a DMV in the U.S. There we will hand them their passport and other documents needed for the license. At the end of the process, we will gather up the passports and return them to the mission office. Hopefully it will go as smoothly. Missionaries do not have a specific visa status, such as students or visitors have. Since they aren’t students and since their intended stay in Canada is for longer than six months, they are not eligible to be classified as visitors either. There is a ministerial status but the implication of the status is that they are paid by a particular religious denomination to be in Canada. Of course, since our missionaries are not paid to be here, they technically don’t qualify under that status either, although some of their visas are stamped with this classification anyway. There is always the possibility some Registry official will get hung up on their lack of specific status and refuse to grant them a license.

There is too much left to individual interpretation of the rules by government officials. This is true, of course, in all countries. In addition to visas, we frequently encounter arbitrary decisions at border crossings, with customs, at post offices, and the Registries. A case in point; one of our missionaries, Elder Del Molino is currently serving here from Spain. There is a particular cured ham which he is fond of and his family has sent it before without difficulty. He recently had a birthday and his parents sent him a care package from home containing another ham and several other items. The package was seized at Customs and then we were informed that the missionary would have to come to the Custom’s office at the airport to pick it up. A Customs agent had decided that such a ham violated Canada’s import laws and it would have to be removed from the package and be destroyed. We were told there would be a charge to open the package to remove the ham and a $100 charge for someone to destroy it. Was there an option to simply refuse the package and have it returned to the sender? Yes, but that would generate a shipping and a Custom’s charge to the family. The rest of the story is…….I Elder Del Molino and his companion to the airport. First we went to Customs who claimed to know nothing about it and had no idea where the package was. After a time it was determined that the package was at the airport FEDEX facility. This required going to FEDEX, not to pick up the package, but to pick up a form that would then have to come back to Customs to be processed. We made the trip to FEDEX and waited in line with other FEDEX customers and were given the needed form. Then it was back to Customs and a further wait there. While waiting I said to the missionary, let’s play up the fact that this is your birthday gift which, because of the Custom’s delay, means your birthday has come and gone and you still have no gift. We played this trump card with the Custom’s official, and to his credit, the agent wrote a personal note to accompany the form back to FEDEX. After waiting again in the FEDEX line, the package was brought to the desk, now with the ham removed, and the remainder of the package given to the missionary with the comment that there would be no additional need to return to Customs nor to pay the “required fee”. Despite the nice gesture of the agent, it, nevertheless, makes my point about how arbitrary such decisions are made. With this in mind, I am preparing absolutely EVERYTHING that might be needed at the U.S. border when I try to take a Canadian truck into the U.S. I have heard horror stories from others about how difficult this process can be when usually it is a simple process of the agent inspecting the vehicle, stamping the form, and sending the person on his way.  I will be holding my breath.

With that, have a great week!

Blog for June 4^, 2017

New wheels for "my truck"

 If you have been following this blog, you will recall what happened to one of the trucks we have had for sale; the wheels were stolen and the truck left on blocks. We discovered later that a hole had been drilled or punched into the bottom of the gas tank and the gas drained out as a part of the same theft. While I was away dealing with the flooding incident in our home in Sandy, the Church insurance wheels had turned and approval given for the repairs. This week I found some rims somewhat like those that were stolen and had new tires mounted on them, so baby again has “shoes”! Now what remains is for the new gas tank to arrive and get it installed. We have plugged the hole in the tank with a flathead screw and rubber gasket so hopefully it will hold a little gasoline, at least enough to enable driving it to the repair shop.

You might wonder why I am reporting on this particular vehicle so much; I have had eyes on it since it became available for purchase and I am seriously considering buying it and driving it home.

We are down to the last few cars to sell (including “my truck”), and with no new cars coming to us for many months, the dust will finally settle. This will allow my replacement to ease into the job without the pressure to move and sell the older cars. He will, however, have something to deal with that I have not. In July a crew will arrive from Salt Lake to install TIWI devices in each of our cars. Most of the missions in the U.S. and Canada already have them. TIWI devices are smart devices that will monitor speed, acceleration, deceleration, lane deviation, and location information for each of the mission cars. Of course, some of the missionaries view these as Big Brother looking over their shoulders to track where they are at any given time and how they are driving, which is possible, but the real purpose is missionary safety and to save the Church money. Inside the car the device will alert the driver that he/she is exceeding the speed limit. It beeps to warn the drivers should the car wander over into someone else’s lane. These devices are used by many trucking companies and commercial fleet operations. Use of these devices has shown to reduce operating costs and control speeding. From a Vehicle Coordinator’s point of view, there is some additional record keeping involved, and since these devices operate from cell phone towers, there will always be problems associated with their proper operation such as when they get out of range of cell phone towers.

Our office mates, the Sefciks, are busy training their replacements, the Stephensons. As it turns out, Elder Stephenson is a real car guy and so is willing to do what he can to the help the car cause beyond his job as Housing Coordinator. This will be wonderful for new Vehicle Coordinator as the job can be a bit overwhelming at times, especially when car sales is involved. Our replacements are due to arrive sometime during the 3^rd week of this month so we will have about a week to 10 days to accomplish what training can be done during that period. We have talked with them by phone and were able to share some of our experiences and provide some advice as to what and what not to bring. They are eager to arrive and get started. They are from Sandy as well and already know one of the MLS couples (also from Sandy) who are serving over in the British Columbia part of our mission.

As you have read in a previous blog, we extended a month so we could provide some training to our replacements. Had we not extended, we would have left for home on May 30^th. It seems strange to contemplate going home. I had a taste of it when I was home recently dealing with the flooding disaster in our home. With so much to be done when we return, we won’t have much time to be idle or bored. We were already planning to finish the interior painting started before we left for our mission, and we are planning new carpeting when the painting is completed. Now, unfortunately, we have the entire basement apartment in our home to tackle when we return in addition to what we had already planned to do. Then there is the yard, which needs so much attention we won’t know where to begin. We will arrive too late to plant a garden so that is off our list.  We have begun some early packing and will soon be offering some of the things we have for sale that we do not plan to take back with us; a keyboard, a portable air conditioning unit, and a stationary bike. Some items like small bookcases we will donate to the mission.

Since our annual passes to Heritage Park will expire soon, we returned yesterday to revisit some of our favorite sites. We have mentioned Heritage Park in several previous blogs. It is a wonderful historical park with many historical buildings from Southern Alberta that have been brought to the site and restored. 80% of the buildings are restorations while the other 20% are replica buildings. It is like a step back in time to the turn of the 20^th century including a restored steam engine and passenger cars that make the trip around the park every 30 minutes or so. Unfortunately, the paddle wheeler is not yet back in service. We have loved the place and returned often last summer. I had hoped to place a few pictures in the blog from the park from last year (they show more detail than the pictures taken yesterday); however, my laptop continues to be locked up with a terrible attack of malware. I’ll include a few pictures that we did take.

Heritage Park Main Street

Wagon ride around the town included some fun descriptions of buildings and events.

No, not Enterprise, Utah. Not sure where this building came from. It houses some of the draft horses used in the park.

These little guys were speaking Russian.

Have a great week!

FLOODING

Well, blog fans, I learned last Saturday (May 20) that our home in Sandy had a flooded basement. I flew home the next day to assess the situation. Since the water source was from without the home (came from the sprinkling system) our homeowners insurance does not cover the damage.  Now one week later, with the services of a disaster mitigation company, the basement is dry but lacking carpet and some drywall (what a misnomer as the lower 6" or so got wet). I flew back to Calgary on Sunday and now we are awaiting estimates for the needed repairs.










Meanwhile, my laptop has been infected by some bogus Microsoft bug and is all locked up, so this
brief blog entry is coming from my office computer. Until I figure out how to unlock my laptop, my blogs will be short and sweet.

In closing, I will add a picture of my running trail (Dimple Dell Trail) not far from our home in Sandy, Utah. It was great getting back to home turf and resuming, albeit very briefly, my routines when home.

Stay tuned...........

Blog for May 14, 2017

Unfortunately, some excitement again this week……

Some bum took my wheels!

 Yes, the wheels are gone! Someone came into the office parking lot sometime during the night on Thursday, jacked up one of the trucks we have for sale, and stole the rims and tires. This was obviously premeditated as they came prepared with blocks, jacked up the truck and hastily removed the lug nuts (they were strewn around the truck as if randomly tossed there) and then lowered the truck onto the blocks. If they came equipped with an impact wrench, as I suspect they did, they were probably there for all of 2-3 minutes. Unfortunately there is no security camera and none in the area that could provide any information so there isn’t much for the police to go on. There were two other pickup trucks there as well but they were not apparently touched.  This is an unfortunate loss and one I am feeling more personally as it is a truck I am planning to buy and drive home next month. It is a 2015 Chevrolet Colorado crew cab with 4-wheel drive and is in excellent condition. The tires were quite worn and needed to be replaced anyway, but now new rims will be required as well. I found it odd that they chose the one truck with the most worn tires from which to steal the wheels.

I mentioned the apartment fire in last week’s blog. They had large fans and large odor absorbing units running on many of the floors all week including our own floor. As I mentioned last week, fortunately we were hardly affected by smoke odor. We have a portable air conditioning unit in our apartment and it was left running when the fire alarm went off. It was left running as we evacuated and I suspect the positive air pressure gradient it causes inside our apartment worked in our favor so no smoke entered our apartment. 

This past week was transfer week. As it turned out only one missionary serving in the south was going home so on Tuesday Kathy and I took the one remaining new Toyota RAV 4 south, exchanged the cars in Lethbridge, picked up Elder Rausch there, and returned to Calgary in the older car (which is to be sold soon).

Elders Rausch, Cox, Crump, Wahlquist & Sisters Frandsen, Burns

 All three missionaries returning to their homes left on Wednesday morning and the arriving missionaries (again only three) came in on Wednesday afternoon flights. We did our usual new missionary training later in the day on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the big transfer day, I made the usual trip with a load of missionaries transferring to the south and returned with the ones transferring to the north. It was also on Thursday we learned that one of our former missionaries, Elder A, would be returning on a Thursday evening flight. In February he had emergency orthopedic surgery to repair a broken femur sustained in an accident and then went home to recover. It is good to have him back and fired up and all ready to go again. On Friday I drove him to Claresholm, Alberta, which is an hour’s drive south of Calgary. There we met his two companions who drove up from Cardston to pick him up. He will again serve as a Zone Leader as he was doing at the time of his accident.

Yesterday, Saturday, it was kind of breezy and rainy so we mostly stayed home, cleaned our apartment, did some shopping, and then went out to dinner and then to a movie. We saw a very interesting movie called “The Lost City of Z”, which is based upon a true story of a British explorer in the Amazon. Coming out of the theater we were treated to a spectacular sunset. Unfortunately, the picture below did not do justice to it; it was remarkable!

Sunset on evening of May 13 at Canyon Meadows Cinema

Happy Mother’s Day to all you mums (as they say in Canada).

Have a wonderful week!

Some weekends one must stay close to home for excitement!

Blog for May 7, 2017

Some weekends one must stay close to home for excitement……..

Early fire action

Last night we had arrived at home and were just sitting down for a rest when the fire alarm sounds. Kathy and I look at each other like, “Is this for real or is it a test of the system?” I go to the apartment door and sniff the hallway. “I don’t smell anything suspicious.” Kathy asks, “So what are we supposed to do?” Me, “I think we are supposed to muster outside.” I grab my keys and my wallet and Kathy grabs her purse and we head for the stairs. As we descend (remember we are on the 12^th floor), we are joined by others who are also questioning whether the alarm is for real. Once outside there is a hint of smoke. We join a gathering group of residents and begin to look for indications of fire, and then, there it is; a small but growing fire on the balcony of an apartment a few floors below our own on the same side of the building. From our rather limited vantage point, it appears to be a burning BBQ grill.

In the distance we can hear the approaching fire trucks. The fire grows as we watch. Soon we hear an explosion and a ball of flame comes shooting out of the balcony space. This is followed by a loud squealing noise and a steady jet of flame can be seen shooting out from the balcony.

 As you see in the picture, our view of the fire is somewhat limited and we have to look up at an oblique angle so we really can’t see into the balcony space very well. The explosion, we assume, happened when the fire burned through the hose connecting the BBQ to the balcony gas line.

The fire continued and after a half hour or so we began to wonder what is being done to put the fire out. We are greatly concerned as it is directly under our own apartment some four floors below and we don’t want the fire to spread upward and involve our own balcony. What is delaying putting the fire out? Do they need to shut off the gas for the whole building first? Are they going from apartment to apartment getting everyone out? Are they not on the right floor? Inquiring minds want to know!

Then all of a sudden the fire was out. The smoke continued from the balcony space but the fire itself was out. Now the question became, when will we be allowed back inside? Will our apartment and our things reek of smoke? Where can we get some information? None of the security people seemed to know anything, only that the residents were being encouraged to move to the street level well away from the buildings where city busses were standing by so people could at least sit inside out of the chilly breeze that had started to blow. It appeared as though it would be quite sometime until anyone would be allowed inside.

I turned to Kathy and said, “I think I would rather sit inside of our own car rather than in a city bus.” She agreed so we decided to try to get inside the parking structure (called a parkade here Canada). We walked to another building that shares the parkade space and successfully made our way to the third level where our car was parked. We sat there for a while and soon realized, finding a bathroom was becoming our most pressing need. While sitting in the car, Kathy was exchanging texts with Sis. Miles, and she suggested that we go to the mission home and spend the night. She and President Miles were away in Lethbridge so no one would be home but, since we knew how to get in through the garage, we decided to take them up on the offer. First we found a fireman at the entrance to our building and gave him our names, our apartment number, and our phone number and asked that we be called when they began letting people return inside.

 We got to bed a little after 11:30 p.m. and it was about midnight when we got a call stating that residents were being allowed back inside, but we were safe and warm in a comfortable bed so we stayed the night. Thank you President and Sister Miles!

After the fire

Closer up

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Earlier in the week we had the opportunity to attend the temple with a group of our missionaries.

 

Elder and Sister Gardiner - senior couple out in the Banff Branch

Elder and Sister Wong - work with the Mandarin Branch

Half of the northern mission went to a temple session in the morning and the other half in the afternoon. In between the two sessions, the missionaries gathered together for lunch at the nearby church building. Lunch was provided by the Relief Society of the Calgary West Stake. The following day, all of the missionaries in the south zones met together for a temple session and lunch. We didn’t go to Cardston for this gathering but certainly enjoyed the time spent with the missionaries here in the north. Our time with them in the temple was an especially nice spiritual experience.

  

Friday evenings are our usual temple nights but, having just been, we decided to attend a baptism in Okotoks for two young men who only recently came from the Phillipines. The baptism and what followed was wonderful. The mom had come to Canada several years ago and was able to finally help her sons immigrate to Canada as well. Both are in their 20s and expressed an interest in learning of the Church their mother had joined. They were both so impressive and bore wonderfully powerful testimonies after their confirmation. There was a large group of young people from the YSA ward where they have been attending and many Filipino friends came as well. After the baptism and confirmation we were all invited to move into the cultural hall where there were several tables filled with Filipino food. We had a great time eating and talking and the food was wonderful.

Nelver and Javenel Quiambao enjoy food with friends after their baptism

Elders Hawkins and Fellows

Yesterday we hiked the trail around the west end of the Glenmore Reservoir where we had not yet been. The trail goes right down into the Weaselhead, which is where the Elbow River enters the reservoir. It is now a protected wetlands area and has a popular hiking and biking trail that goes for miles. The trail crosses the river itself via a bridge  (see picture below). The weather was nice and we enjoyed the hike even including making way for a number of runners participating in a half-marathon race around the reservoir.  

Elbow River flowing into Glenmore Reservoir - old bridge in the distance

New Glenmore Reservoir trail bridge 

 Finally, we have to share a somewhat exciting experience, at least it was to us. What are the odds of having the outside temperature (66 degrees) come up as the speedometer is about to reach 66,666 miles? Well, we were watching the sixes about to come up and noticed the outside temperature was 66. We decided when this happened we would pull over and get a picture; however, as we pulled over and into a shopping center, suddenly the temperature went up to 67 degrees. Having nothing else better to do, we sat and waited for about 40 minutes for the temperature to drop back down to 66 degrees and then got the picture. 

Not your everyday occurrence

Yes, perhaps it was a waste of time but not your everyday experience so we have to share.

Have a wonderful week.