WINTER WALKS

My son Alex and I made an agreement that this year we were not going to let the cold stop us from walking every day.

As we pulled into the park we like to visit and found a parking space, I couldn’t help looking over at him and asking, “Are we still doing this?” I looked out the windshield at the slate colored sky and saw that the wind was picking up.

“It won’t be bad.” He was looking at the trees blowing in the wind too. “We’re dressed warm enough.” He didn’t sound very convincing.

We hadn’t even gotten out of the car when I noticed a jogger coming towards us. He was wearing a pair of shorts and a lightweight sweatshirt. I looked over at Alex as I pulled my hood up over my head and wrapped a scarf around my neck, pulling part of it up to cover my face. “Okay. Well, if he can wear shorts and not be cold I’m pretty sure I can do this!”

I opened the door and the wind instantly caught it and pulled it from my hand. Lucky for me I wasn’t parked next to a car or I definitely would have caused a dent. “Ooh, that could have been a disaster!” Closing the door I chirped the car locked and we headed for the walking path we liked.

I looked up at the sky again and noticed it was getting even darker. “Was there snow in the forecast?” I asked.

Alex dug his hands deeper into his pockets, bending his head down to block the wind. “I checked. It didn’t say there was going to be any.”

I watched as some geese flew overhead honking to one another as they headed towards one of the open fields.

“Maybe we should go on one of the wooded paths and see if it blocks any of this wind.” Alex suggested as we turned off the paved walkway and turned towards the woods.

“Great idea!” I said as another gust of wind hit hard enough to stop me for a moment.

As we made our way deeper into the woods the wind did seem to die down. “This is so much better!” I began noticing how pretty the path was as it went along a small lake. We watched as squirrels darted in the underbrush and a hawk circled overhead. “I have to admit it really is peaceful out here.”

“See, it’s not so bad.” Alex looked over at me. “I don’t know why we always stopped going out for walks when the temperature dropped.”

“You’re right!” I pulled the scarf up over my face again. “We just need to be dressed for it!”

We were coming out of the woods and were crossing a small bridge that went over the narrow end of the lake. We stopped and leaned on the railing looking down at the water. I noticed a few small drops hitting on the surface below. “Is that rain?” I looked up but didn’t see anything.

“I’m not sure.” Alex was looking up too. We could see the sky was turning an even darker shade of gray.

I dug in the pockets of my coat pulling out my gloves. As I was putting them on I noticed small white flecks blowing by me. “Okay, so I guess the weather app we just looked at missed the snow we’re now walking in!” I had to laugh as I tugged the strings tighter on my hood and adjusted my scarf again. I looked over at Alex. “It’s actually really pretty.”

Just then the shorts wearing jogger came into sight. As he passed us I waited until he was out of earshot and looked at Alex. “There is no way he’s not cold!”