: Robert and Malcom,
: Thanks for the write ups and the pictures. What are the odds of
: being rescued by other Canadians.

YW, Scott, I hope you managed to forget the cold weather for a while.

Ever hear of the descriptive phrase "snow birds"? A snow bird is a Canadian who drives to the airport, parks the car in the long term parking lot with a dome light switch left on, catches a plane, then lands anyplace where the water is liquid, ideally warm and the rum flows freely. This was my first overseas experience with that concept in mind: I quite liked it. That said, both Linda and I concur with the idea that neither of us could live anyplace where the snow doesn't fall...but flying away from it for a while is a nice way to remember how much some of us love Canadian winters on the prairies. There are many Canadians who exhibit a rather high degree of cowardice when temps are predicted to fall into the -40 C's around here...they are the snow birds who fly off every stinkin' winter. The odds that I'd be rescued by Canadians were therefore favorable. Heck, there's even a Canadian flag hanging from Ivan's ceiling just in front of the bar.