Throwback Thursday | Summer Snow.

my brother Steve, my sister Karen and me - Casper Mountain, 1971

As we head into another fifteen days with forecasted highs above 90, I thought it would be a cool time to share this story. My dad was transferred from Houston, Texas to Casper, Wyoming in May, 1971. All three of us kids were born in the south (me in Georgia and Steve and Karen in Texas). and up until that May, we hadn't seen snow.

As my mom tells the story, we left Houston on Saturday, May 22 and headed north, passing through the hottest spot in the country that day, likely somewhere in the Texas panhandle. The next day, we were in Colorado, someplace near Colorado Springs and it started to sleet, with maybe a little bit of snow, too. In any event, it was cold, and of course we were all wearing shorts. What little bit of winter wear we had was packed on top of the car. We pulled into a truck stop to retrieve our coats...and got a lot of curious stares from the natives. My mom says she and my dad laughed about that story for years. I can't imagine what it must've been like...culture and climate shock all rolled into one!

The photo above is captioned "Casper Mountain, First Snow". It was probably taken a few days later - after giving my mom time to unpack a few bags and find our sweaters and long pants!