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Lots of snow.
The busy day turned into a busy week – I’m caught between hardly being able to believe that it’s Thursday and wondering how much longer the work week will be. It’s not busy in a bad way, though. Very, very busy, but with interesting puzzles and conversations, new people to meet and still lots of things to learn. I love it, but I just don’t have much oomph left in my at the end of the day.
And then last night, it began to snow.
And snow, and snow, and snow. And that marks, I think, the first real test of the full walking commute: uphill in the snow.
When I left this morning, it was still too early for most anybody to have shoveled their sidewalks, and the city snowplows were non-existent (oh, we hear lots about these mythical snowplows, but in an hour and a bit of walking, I saw all of one). So it was quite a slog this morning. I put those Yak Trax things onto the bottom of my shoes, gingerly scuttled out of the apartment building – they are murder on tile, these Yak Trax – and headed out.
It took a lot of walking, and a lot of slogging. And a lot of stopping to rest. But I made reasonable time, and the walk took about an hour and fifteen minutes instead of the usual forty-five to fifty minutes. The worst part was the windchill. I’d strapped my water bottle to the backpack belt and had it hanging off my hip instead of tucked into the backpack pocket. This was fine for the first water stop, but by the second, I discovered that the lid had frozen shut. Tragical!
Of course, the positive of that is that the water inside was very cold and refreshing. What with the ice that had begun to form inside and all.
But I made it. First big snowfall of the walk all the way in, and I made it. I’ve been having to have a second breakfast lately – I’m burning through my Carnation Instant Breakfast too quickly, I guess, so I’ve been having a packet of instant oatmeal when I get to work. Which is fine, but today I really needed to have second breakfast and elevensies before I got to luncheon. And since I hadn’t packed elevensies, I was pretty darn hungry.
6 Responses to “Lots of snow.”
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Grad school is done. Now reading whatever the heck I want.
Well you have to pack elevensies if you’re going to go all there and back again every day. Hopefully you won’t encounter any problems along the way, but if you do fall into a cave during your commute, your only option may be a challenge of riddles.
It was 70 here today. Reading this gives me cold chills. Being so spoiled by all of the warm weather we are having is going to make dealing with the cold, when it does arrive, much harder!
I’ve been watching all the snow you’ve been having!
What are Yak-Trax?
I think they’re those spiky things you fasten over your boots to get traction on ice and snow. I have an Alaska friend who uses them a lot in the winter, a nondriver walker everywhere.
Speaking as a caring grandma: instant breakfast might be replaced by oatmeal or something that is more substantial like that, to keep up your energy for this walk. I’m just sayin…
You have my undying admiration. And yes, Yak Trax are terrible on tiles. I’m glad you did not discover that The Hard Way.
That “tile” is travertine marble. What are you doing walking across it in Yak Trax? Don’t let the Super catch you at it….