Latest article for Travel Alberta

My latest piece for Travel Alberta is up here. It is all about springtime in Alberta’s Parks! Yes, spring is coming!

Bring On Spring!

 

I decided to make the transition today. No more winter and hello spring! If you read my last post, you may be thinking, Hello dork! But no, I have not gone that far.

 

The snow is melting, the sun is shining and I have pulled out the light jacket. The one that is too cold for winter and too hot for summer, the one that is just right for spring. I am now officially sucked into the idea that spring is here. I know, I know, this is Alberta and it is only April, anything can still happen.

 

But today I also put the snowmen away. No, not the ones made out of snow you see scant remains of on north-facing lawns, the cutesy arts and crafts ones in my foyer. One is stuffed and holds a little broom while sitting on a willow chair, merrily welcoming visitors as they enter our house, the other on a quilted wallhanging in the same entranceway. They are not really Christmas decorations so I can leave them up past the holidays, but their removal marks a different kind of celebration – the beginning of spring!

 

In my own mind anyway. We’ll see what May brings.

Spring?

 

Spring, ever hear of it? It is actually a little season that comes after winter. No? You haven’t? Oh, then you must be from Alberta.

 

I don’t mean to sound like a whiner, but jeesh! What is up with this snow and cold? I have springtime shoes I am dying to get out of storage and a brand new cotton purse I am eager to start toting around. I know winter lasts a long time here, I have lived here pretty much all my life after all, but it is the principle of the thing. I have put in my time. I have shoveled, sanded and chipped. I have layered, bundled and covered. I have scraped, swept and plugged in. I am DONE.

 

I know this is life in Alberta in the “spring.” I know better than to expect springtime weather at this time of year. I know we still have a ways to go before I see green grass. I can’t explain why I am so impatient this year. I just am.

 

And so I may just have to start taking things into my own hands. I may just have to stage my own little protest in my (futile) effort to move things along. Snow and ice be damned, I am putting on my sandals and sporting my new spring tote. I don’t care if I look like a shivering dork, I am a principled woman and sometimes a girl just has to take a stand.