Master of the elements

I decided to go for a walk to the grocery store. My route took me down Fisher, across the Experimental Farm, down a bit of Merivale, and finally down Baseline to the store. It's about a half hour walk in good conditions.

Today is miserable. Heavy snow, and the temperature is hovering around -12°C, but feels more like -20 with the windchill. Only a moron would be out walking in weather like that.

Moronity aside, I wanted to see if I was still tough enough to go for long walks in bad weather. I've walked through worse, but never for a purpose. Granted, my purpose today wasn't a very good one, but it was still a purpose.

I started out by walking to the bus stop. I had originally planned to take the bus there and back, but upon seeing that the bus wouldn't be by for another 10 minutes, I figured I may as well walk down to Baseline and wait for the bus there. The sidewalk proved to be near impassable, but I trundled on to the path through the Experimental Farm. It was surprisingly clear (only shallow snow covering it) so I decided to walk across to Merivale.

The wind didn't seem too bad in the farm, which was surprising. The snow also wasn't being driven into my face quite as badly, and it was actually a quite pleasant walk. Except for the eventual snow blindness (white on white on white makes it tough to see very far) it went without event.

Getting off the farm path on that side of Merivale is tough because there's no sidewalk. A rather large snowbank met me there, and after slugging through it, I finally managed to get across the street. The sidewalk on that side was nicely plowed, but the snow on the far side was piled up nearly as tall as me.

Baseline's sidewalk turned out to be almost as bad as Fisher's was, so getting to the store was a bit of a labour. Kind of sad that the toughest part of the trip was an unplowed sidewalk.

I took the bus back because I didn't want my groceries to freeze, so the return trip is boring.

While I was out I didn't see another person walking anywhere. There was a parked car and a guy walking his dog in the Experimental Farm, and I saw a guy with a shovel on Merivale, but other than that not another person was out walking.

As such, I claim victory over nature. The inclement weather couldn't suppress my urge to go out walking, and I reached my destination with minimal delays, despite the awful day. I braved the elements and succeeded. I am the master of winter.

Or I'm a moron. Your call.