The Power is Out, Save the Ice Cream!

We were making the best seller, Salty Caramel on Friday and our supervisor had just commented how quickly we were going and how this should always be the way it is. Then the lights went out. The power didn't come back all night. In between a lot of sitting around and waiting, people that get paid more than me tried pretty hard to come up with ways of saving millions of dollars worth of "artisan" ice cream. There was a freezer team and a number of refrigerated and freezer trucks and we tried pretty hard to load them up as quickly as possible. I got off about 1am and found out that the power returned the next day and the ice cream was saved, excellent. 

Houses and businesses either side of the ice cream kitchen were fine and it was only when I got home and had to pull a huge branch from our parking spot that I realized the storm might have been quite a big deal. It transpired that the storm winds had hit heights of 80 mph. On the Saturday morning we went out for a walk around the neighborhood. Some streets not even a few hundred feet away from us had huge trees down and here and there a few crushed cars too. While walking around we talked to more people than we have in the 8 months since we've been here. We stopped by one of the record shops (the sign above) and we stopped by a store with one of the owners standing on the street corner advertising the free (melting) ice cream, we both picked up a Twix. We continued stepping over branches and crossed different streets, and turned around in a few places as we couldn't get around the 100 year old fallen tree. We eventually got to Lost Weekend Records and had a good long chat with the owner. He seemed to think that it was only him, the Hustler Store and the supermarket that had power in their section of High Street. As we walked towards home we said hi to a load more people in a sympathetic kind of way and overheard the two men with chainsaws being offered "cold ones" by some chap on his porch watching the clean-up.

The Crew game was delayed by an hour while they tried to get power to all parts of the stadium, much to the chagrin of one caller to a local radio station we were tuned to. "Why do they have power crews at the stadium?.... 85% of Americans probably don't even care about the game on the pitch (as they call it)..... there are old women without power..... it's wrong I tell you....." Or another caller; "this storm is God's wrath on us for the decision of the supreme court to uphold Obama's health care decision...."

Back to the game and the guy above was doing his best to be a part of military appreciation night, or just a bit early on the 4th of July. Real (ahem) Salt Lake looked much the better team and passed the ball really well, but failed to convert any of their chances and before they knew it they were 2-0 down to the Crew. That was how it stayed, the fireworks went off and we walked home in the rain, thankfully without the 80 mph winds.