Sleet, Slush-- Slip Slidin'

Last Thursday my only class of the day was Botany for three hours in the afternoon. We had been warned to dress for the weather because we were going to be outside looking at trees. The forecast had not been promising: 100% chance for rain/snow. So Thursday morning when I woke up and saw the sun shining I was very optimistic. Hey, maybe it would turn out to be a great day for being outside, I thought. Wrong!

Around 12:15 it started to rain. It would come down hard, let up, and then come down hard again. So we started botany class at 1 and spent a little time in the classroom. About 2:00 we headed outside, all of us in hats, gloves, raincoats, boots- basically wearing whatever we could to keep warm and dry. We were prepared for an adventure.

Not five minutes after we left the classroom the rain conveniently turned to sleet/hail. Little pellets were hitting us as we walked around campus attempting to look at the trees. We had impeccable timing. Our professor would tell us to look up at the branches high on the tree and we would, but seconds later we would be saying "Oww, sleet in the eyes!" We all just had to laugh. What a perfect day to schedule our outdoor adventure. I had a good time for the 20 minutes we were outside. Sure beats being in the classroom all afternoon!

By the time practice rolled around, all of that sleety rain precip had left a nice think coating of slush on all of the sidewalks and roads around town. Running turned into slogging through the wet stuff. At first we tried to navigate around the slush, but it was inevitable that our shoes and socks would be completely saturated. It turned out to be kind of fun after we got used to our shoes feeling like 5 lb. weights.

Then came the cooler temps at night. After dinner I went with some friends to the dress-rehearsal of "Vagina Monologues" (excellent and highly recommended!) and the slush on the sidewalks were just starting to freeze. But oh man, after the show was over around 9:15, ice was just covering campus! As we journeyed from the Center for the Arts across campus to Towers, we were sliding all over the place! It was so much fun letting gravity pull you down the little slopes and then trying to keep your balance. All over campus giggles and eeks were heard as people successfully got down a slope and became overconfident right before wiping out. Who knew the weather could lead to so much slip slidin' and smiles?!