Changing Weather

Mackinac Island experienced the great warm-up and cool-down that Michigan went through this weekend, and it wasn’t a pretty sight!

As far as I’m concerned, I’m really okay with walking up and down Grand Hill to get to and from work. I’ve even discovered  a couple of other options for where I can trek, including East Bluff, and the trail next to my apartment that cuts through the cemetery (creepy-sounding, but really not so!). But when we have weather like we did this weekend, it’s not the easiest thing to do to have to get from point A to point B. If it’s icy out, then you have the option of either driving your snowmobile around and risking wearing down your carbides or ruining your track, or walking/biking around and risking breaking your neck. As more of a walker myself, I see the snowmobilers as crazy, as I’m sure they see me the same way as I slowly drag my feet through the snowy sludge.

By Friday, the rain was so constant that most of the snow had melted, and I felt it was time to change out my snow boots for my rain boots. Good call on my part, because the minute I left home, I found myself trudging in ankle-deep slush:

And by Friday night, there was enough bare pavement to comfortably walk on the streets and definitely bike on the sidewalks… and sometimes bike on the streets.

I left my snowmobile downtown as to not get in the way of my daily ‘up and down the hill’ workout, which actually proved to be a good idea: when I woke up this morning, there was enough snow for snowmobiles to get around, even downtown. It was as though the Earth needed to clean off its palette and restart winter, all happening within one weekend. Things are starting to look back to normal.