Winton Woods

I know that after the weekend, my groupies are waiting for an update, and since it if never good to disappoint your fans, here it is…
First of course the weather; I heard that in Holland spring is in full swing, but here we have been waiting. My Japanese colleague keeps joking that in Cincinnati there is only one week of spring and then it is summer. Perhaps summer is about to start now. Last week we have had a lot (and I mean really a lot) of rain. It is not so much the duration of the rain being long, it’s just the sheer amount of water that can come from the skies all at once. I was however quite happy that temperatures had increased up to the point where some days even my summer coat would be too warm.
For the weekend high temperatures had been predicted, albeit with occasional showers, so I decided it was about time to check out one of the parks that I drive by (or actually drive through, it’s a US size park) every day. However on Saturday it was pouring outside. Driving back from the gym, I could still see the car in front of me, but I had no idea what was going on in front of that car. On the highway were 65 mph is allowed, I think even some of the biggest dare devils were only going 40. Luckily I am quickly becoming “a very renowned expert in the field”, so I still had some work that I could do and I decided to stay in and continue my “steps towards stardom”, and with temperatures not higher than 15 degrees they were quite chilly steps.
After this I don’t know what happened, but on Sunday temperatures rose even beyond my personal 25 degree shut-down limit and they were closing in on 30 degrees and after all the thunderstorms of Saturday it was quite humid as well. I wasn’t sure whether it would be a good idea for me to start hiking in these temperatures, so I first did the necessary groceries and I went to the (quite cool) gym. Then in the late afternoon I did decide to give it a go, so I drove to the park (windows down, enjoying the wind in my hair). I took my mp3 player with me, it’s the first time actually that I’ve used it since I am here, but it was good. In Europe we know that a lot of music is coming from the US, so I am wondering why I have not been hearing anything else on the radio in my car except for the same 15 or 20 songs over and over again. I have found one station that throws in the occasional Bon Jovi (their work from the eighties) and earlier today they had November Rain but some shortened version without all the good parts. (Why do radio stations all over the world seem to think that only the parts were somebody is singing are worth airing?) Anyway, this afternoon it was just me, Jeff (Buckley) and a couple of acres of wood.
They call Chicago the windy city, but I think Cincinnati came in second when they were handing out this title (it’s so bad that I barely wear skirts due to the obvious danger of indecent exposure in this prude country). Luckily the Cincinnati winds provided some cooling and so did the two bottles of water I took with me, but still it was quite warm.
I only walked one trail today and afterwards I have been cruising through the park in my car (again windows down) and I am definitely a fan. Usually when I come home from work I spend about 30 minutes on the home trainer in the basement, to prevent me from growing in horizontal directions. Even tough I can watch tv while doing it (there are 4 tv’s in this house), it is quite boring. So I think in the next couple of weeks I am going to check out some of the other trails after work.

* please not that the words in quotation marks are not actually mine, there were taken from other sources.