Slip-Sliding on the Way Home - Tuesday, 10 November 2009

When you're from the southern USA, like we are, you just don't see much snow or ice. So for now, at least, cold weather is fun (albeit freezing). Tuesday I convinced Sophia to walk home instead of taking the bus--as much as I love Bus 14, it can be a frustrating ride home. Bus 14 drops us off a little bit closer to our home than Bus 4 does, so that should make it a good thing. However, halfway through the short route from school to home, it frequently stops so the drivers can change--or so people can change buses. Sometimes all you have to do is wait a few minutes on a warm bus; sometimes all you have to do is get off and onto another one. Monday we had to get off and wait in the freezing cold for about 10 minutes. We could have walked home faster.

So on Tuesday, when I saw Bus 4 drive off before we got to the stop, I knew I wasn't in the mood to wait potentially ten minutes for Bus 14 to arrive, and then risk having to get off and wait another 10 minutes for drivers to change or whatnot. I told Sophia that there must be ice on the way home, so let's walk.

Sophia doesn't like to walk home. But she does like to slide on ice. And, as I had suspected, there was plenty of ice on the way home. All the snow had melted well over a week ago, and although it's been freezing cold--usually between -7 and -20 degrees Celsius--there hasn't been any precipitation, hence no snow. But there was ice!

I had instructed her to always test ice by tapping it with her toes before stepping on it--and to test every step. Last week she had walked on some ice, only to have it break and she found herself knee-deep in mud. Ew! (She wasn't too upset, I was though.)

So we tested the ice and soon I found myself joining in the fun. There were long stretches of ice off the sides of the road, and we started running and sliding. She fell a few times, but when you're having fun, you don't mind.

In the end the walk took about 40 minutes, but that was because we were having fun. I didn't see anyone else having fun. Were we just foreigners and that made the ice so enticing? Or do we just know how to have fun?