For some reason, watching the Oilers lose is making my mind wander to this afternoon’s very pleasant walk with Tom throughout Glenora and Ravine Drive. Wearing my spring jacket, but my feet are really hurting in boots and micro-spikes. Another few days of this warm weather and I’ll be back in my running shoes.
8C and 13,342 steps.
Another pleasant, melty walk through the Museum grounds to Tom’s and then over to Numchok Wilai for some Thai take out. For a couple of vegetarians, their Massaman Beef is out of this &$!?# world!
6C, 10,088 steps.
The warm up begins…slowly. It was unbelievably cold for a couple of weeks so no real walks from the 5th to the 15th.
There is no filter on this photo along Ravine Drive. The sky was that blue!
I often stop here to listen to the birds while Tom carries on for another 20 minutes or so. When I come with him on his walks, I clock in around 13,000 steps but he likes a few more, so I stop here and he walks over the nearby Mackenzie Bridge. Because I wear micro-spikes, my feet can get really sore walking on cement and this walk from Glenora to the end of Ravine Drive involves a lot of cement thanks to responsible homeowners who clear their sidewalks and a lot of melting. He just wears hiking boots and seems fine. I guess I’m the unstable one in the relationship! Who woulda thought?
Sometimes he walks on the sidewalk and I walk next to him on the street, where there is still snow and ice close to the curb. That’s one of the tradeoffs of spikes. I stay upright (always a good thing), but the impact on my feet (if I’m on cement) is substantial.
Anyway, beautiful day for a walk after two weeks of sloth.
-9C and climbing.
A broken record, but another beautiful walk with Tom. Frosty but gorgeous blue skies. 14,222 steps but at least 1,500 of that was a brief trip to the grocery store after our walk.
-8C.
A lunchtime walk in the river valley along River Road, MacKinnon Ravine, and Glenora. Once again, micro-spikes were a must. I did not eat lunch at the same time. I’m incapable of to doing two things at once. I would hyperventilate.
It was spectacularly nice. Not super warm (about -2C) but blue sky and sunshine. I’m glad I went when I did because it was starting to cloud over by the time I was finished, about 90 minutes later. I need my blue canopy.
The river itself is not quite as frozen as it should be this time of year. One open area below the Groat Bridge sounded like it was deep in mid-spring melt.
0C by the time I arrived home/10,761 steps
I’ve turned into a bit of a blue sky walker. If the sky is blue, I’m walking. If it’s overcast, I’m pouting. Luckily we’ve had a lot of blue sky lately. It’s been beautiful.
Saturday, Tom and I went for our usual walk through Glenora and into Ravine Drive. A not uncommon event in our lives, especially in this ridiculously warm weather we’ve been having since mid-December.
An Edmonton Journal confirmed what I was thinking about this ‘winter’ – that it’s very reminiscent of the winter of 2011/12. It helps to have a walking blog, but during that winter (apparently meteorologists define winter as starting from Dec 1) it was warm and largely snowless, meaning the snow that had previously fallen either disappeared or turned to solid ice.
It’s a dilemma for walking because the sidewalks are clear but many of the streets still have sheets of black ice. Do I wear micro-spikes? On long walks and in the woods, yes. Walking to the store two blocks away? No. Very much like the winter of 2011/12, which along with this year (so far) is one of three warmest winters ever recorded. We did get snow in February and March of 2012 but it stayed relatively warm.
-2C, 15,021 steps