HOT TODAY CHILI TOMORROW
We’ve noticed that, every year about this time, it starts becoming a bit warm around town.
Hot, actually. Hellishly hot. Hot-enough-to-melt-a-nickel-on-your-forehead hot.
But even in the most torrid stretches of a Southern Nevada summer, a few cold — or at least noticeably cooler — spots can be found in our particular patch of desert, too.
And when the sun starts to suck the moisture out of our bodies like a thirsty kid guzzling down a Slurpee, it’s places like these we try to think about.
LET IT SNOW
The Arctic Ice Room at Qua Baths & Spa at Caesars Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd. South, is kept at a refreshing 55 degrees. But what really puts one in a chillier state of mind is the sight of the snow that falls from its ceiling.
Caesars spokeswoman Alyssa Bushey says the Arctic Ice Room is a popular place for guests to unwind after they enjoy heat treatments elsewhere in the spa.
And if the temperature and snow aren’t invigorating enough, there’s an ice fountain that proffers ice shavings for skin cooling and exfoliation purposes.
Sounds about right. This time of year, dunking one’s face into an extra-large unflavored snow cone would be refreshing.
COLD, COLD HEART
Finally, and this is totally subjective: For the masses of young men you see hitting the Strip’s nightclubs each weekend, the coldest thing to be found in Las Vegas surely is the icy gaze of a woman who has just given them a soul-crushing brushoff.
Chilly? Try, glacial.
ICE, ICE BABY
Reddy Ice and Las Vegas Cold Storage, 1201 Searles Ave., offers heat relief on two fronts.
First, it manufactures ice. General Manager Craig Call says the ice-making machinery is found in rooms that are cool but not arcticlike. But, once the ice is made, it’s stored in rooms that are maintained at 10 to 20 degrees.
From there, the ice — which, by the way, is called "fragmented," because it’s made in large sheets and then crushed into smaller pieces — is shipped to supermarkets, convenience stores and other retailers.
But the coldest part of the company’s operations is its cold storage facilities, which are maintained at 15 to 20 degrees below zero.
According to Call, almost all of the 35,000-square-foot, 28-foot-high facility is used for food storage by restaurants, food brokers and distributors and anybody else who needs more freezer space.
GIVE IT A SHOT
Those who would like to keep cool and nurse a buzz at the same time might check out the vodka locker at Red Square in Mandalay Bay, 3950 Las Vegas Blvd. South.
There, in a refrigerated room kept at between zero and 5 degrees, vodka aficionados can enjoy their favorite libation at a proper temperature to bring out the spirit’s flavor.
Kari Borra, Red Square general manager, said some of the lockers are rented by members who store their favorite bottles there. Nonmembers can purchase a bottle from Red Square’s menu of about 210 vodkas at prices that range from $200 to $700 per bottle.
They then can enjoy their vodka in the locker — fur coats and hats are provided — while a "vault goddess" gives you the skinny on what you’re drinking.
"Some people are in there four or five minutes, some are in there 25 or 30 minutes," Borra says.
You can even drink your shots off of the head of Lenin, relocated from the headless statue out front.
IN THE TUNNEL
Speaking of frozen food, the "freezer tunnel" at Anderson Dairy, 801 Searles Ave., is the place where ice cream becomes the frozen-solid stuff that helps us outlast summer.
Actually, the freezer tunnel is a room kept at between 16 and 20 degrees below zero, says spokesman Kim Webster. Ice cream enters the room partially frozen — it resembles soft-serve at this point — already packaged and shrink-wrapped in pint, half-gallon and three-gallon containers.
When conveyor belts bring the bundled containers into the room, employees wearing very warm clothing take the ice cream from the belt — it’s called "catching ice cream," Webster says — and stack the containers on pallets. After 24 to 48 hours, when the ice cream freezes solid, it’s then moved into a regular freezer.
According to Webster, Anderson has about 12,950 square feet of freezer space devoted to ice cream products alone.
By the way: What makes the freezer tunnel really nippy is that the air inside it is kept moving, creating a sort of wind-chill effect.
"It’s like being on Lake Michigan in January," Webster says.
THEY REALLY ARE COLD
You’ve heard the expression, "colder than a meat locker"? Technically speaking, that means "really cold."
At Larry’s Great Western Meats, 420 S. Valley View Blvd., owner Larry Hughes has three freezers that he uses for various products. One is kept at 12-below zero, one at about zero, and another at about 20-above.
That last, he explains, is a holding freezer for products that will be sold quickly, while the others are used for longer-term storage.
Hughes has about 1,200 square feet of freezer space at his custom-meat business, and says the freezers are "pretty full all the time."
Throughout the building, the temperature is kept comfortably cool, from no more than 70 degrees out front to 50 degrees year-round in the meat processing area.
RINK’S THE RAGE
Anybody who has ever attended a hockey game knows that hockey is, at least for spectators, the most refreshing summertime sport there is.
At the SoBe Ice Arena at the Fiesta Rancho, 2400 N. Rancho Drive, it’s a comfortable 55 to 60 degrees year-round, said arena manager Rob Pallin.
The arena is pretty busy during the summer, too, Pallin adds, thanks to youth hockey programs, a men’s league and regular public skating sessions.
NATURE IS COOL
There’s no reason the valley’s cold spots have to be earthbound. If you had, say, a fighter jet, you could fly far, far above the valley to much — much — cooler climes.
Capt. Justin McVay, a spokesman for Nellis Air Force Base, says that, at 30,000 to 40,000 feet, you’d find outside temperatures to be 40 to 50 degrees below zero.
If water is your element of choice, check out Lake Mohave. Roxanne Dey, spokeswoman for the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, says the stretch of Lake Mohave running from Hoover Dam to Willow Beach stays 65 to 68 degrees year-round. That’s because the water there comes from the lower, cooler depths of Lake Mead.
Canoers and kayakers who use that part of the lake often take full advantage of its cooling properties, even if only briefly.
"When you go on river trips and you see the people who jump in and stay in, they’re always from, like, Minnesota or North Dakota," Dey says. "And, people that jump in and go, ‘Ohhhh … ‘ are from Nevada and Arizona.
