For many years now I have gotten texts from Dad in the morning after he has read the newspaper. He will send me temperature information about Peter Sinks if it was the lowest US temperature the previous day. Sort of a running joke …

Let me explain … Peter Sinks (elevation 8,164 feet) is a natural limestone sinkhole approximately one-half mile wide in diameter located in the Bear River Mountains, east of Logan, Utah. It is one of the coldest spots in the lower 48 – on February 1,1985, a temperature of −69.3 °F was recorded there, the lowest recorded temperature in Utah, and the second-coldest temperature ever recorded in the contiguous United States. Joel and I decided to head up there last Sunday to see if we could find this Utah Oddity.

It ended up being about a 2 hour drive and then about a 1.5 mile hike into the weather station. We left early in the morning and saw very few people but the canyon had been featured on the news as one of the Fall Color “Hotspots” the day before and it was wall to wall traffic for about 30 miles until we got out of the canyon on the way home.

We tried stopping at our favorite Mexican restaurant but they were closed so we went to a Chinese Buffet next door. For whatever reason, Joel thought the giant steaming pan of baby octopus looked good. They all looked so oddly similar that I wonder if they were actually molded out of something (tire rubber) and were fake like that fake crab they sell? HMMM He threw one on my plate but NO THANKS!