By Joe Schoenmann

Published Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2008 | 4:56 p.m.

Updated Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008 | 2:14 p.m.

It was so cold this morning, you could see your breath when you exhaled.

It was so cold, there was ice on the streets of downtown Las Vegas, where

rainfall from a day earlier had collected.

But it wasn’t cold enough to keep some people out of the pool at the Golden

Nugget downtown.

Around noon, two lifeguards in full gear -- jackets, shoes, sweat pants --

stood duty, hands tucked in their pockets, while a middle-aged couple from

the Midwest basked in the relative warmth.

“I’d take this any day back home,” said the man, in town from Minnesota.

It was roughly 41 degrees at noon, with lows around 35 expected. It’s

supposed to get cooler by Thursday.

The couple sat in the whirlpool, a few feet from the shark tank that

swimmers can shoot through on a water slide -- provided it's warm enough.