Probably should have just stayed home.

With the temperature falling almost as fast as the snow and wind bending the big spruce trees across the street, it was obviously going to be a pretty miserable day to be outside. But ya know, I kinda like miserables. So I grabbed my gear and headed out.

I knew it was pointless trying to make it out of the city as soon as I got the truck moving. The snow, fortunately, was pretty dry so though there was lots of it, it wasn’t all that slippery. The problem was the wind.

Things don’t usually get all that blustery here in my little mid-city hollow. Wind tends to blow over the surrounding rises and it’s just swirls of breeze that get down into my neighbourhood. The tops of the 20-metre spruces across the street get bent but down at ground level things are much less gusty.

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Unless there’s a north wind. And that’s what was blowing today.

There was already a snowdrift on my hood and on the street in front of the little truck. If things were piling up like that here, the places I had thought about going would likely be even worse. But I was already dressed up in my winter gear — had to do some digging to find some of it after that last month’s warmth — so I shovelled the snow off the hood and headed out.

As soon as I left my neighbourhood I knew I wasn’t even going to try to get out of town. The roads were a mess and if they were that bad here, they would be worse out in the countryside. So, since I was already rolling, I decided to see what I could find in the city.

The first stop — or slowdown, at least — was the Elbow River. Even in the coldest weather there are sections where the flow doesn’t freeze over so I headed there first. And, indeed, there was open water.

But nothing else. The ducks and geese that would usually be there had obviously found a less-exposed place to hang out. So I went to look for one, too.

Thankfully, Calgary has a lot of small urban parks so I headed for one not too far from the river. My hope was maybe I might find a couple of the city deer that like the river valley or maybe even a coyote. Nope, none of those. I did see a flicker fly by........

© Calgary Herald