Anyone who knows me knows I hate winter and cold weather. After living in Texas for 18 years and then San Diego for nearly 7, I no longer tolerate cold weather well. Despite that, we moved to Southern Indiana a few years ago to be closer to family, but continued to spend the winters in San Diego. Except this year, we decided to stay in Indiana while we have a new home built. Thankfully it’s mostly been mild so we’ve still been able to get out on adventures. Then this week the weather turned bitterly cold. In fact it was downright arctic with windchills 20 and 30+ degrees below zero. That ended my winter hiking for a bit.
Being the wimp about cold weather that I am, I hunkered down and mostly stayed inside except when Sunny needed to go out. Then I bundled up and looked like the abominable snowman walking her around the yard, but that was our only adventure.
Finally, today, the weather was sunny and in the low 40’s. The snow is melting and it just feels good to be outside. Because of the improvement in the weather we decided to get out of our neighborhood and go on an adventure. We ventured to Car Top Park on Monroe Lake which is where we launch our kayaks. Needless to say, we did not bring our kayaks. It’s a good thing since the lake was frozen. The water had receded pretty far so we had a lot of shore to walk on. Despite that we did not let Sunny off leash since we were afraid she would run out on the lake and we weren’t sure if it was frozen solid. No matter, she enjoyed getting out of the house and neighborhood and smelling all the smells.
If the rest of the winter is as nice as today, we will get out on many more adventures and do some winter hiking. Even when it isn’t I hope to convince myself to get outside. I’m finding that the snow changes the way the trails and parks look and it’s a different type of beauty. Now if I can just bundle up enough to get out and enjoy it.
For more information on Car Top Park check out my previous post Car Top Park.