Day 22: Spring is in the Air

Spring is in the air. How do I know? Well, here in Edmonton, there is some unique telling factors that characterize springtime. If you don't know where Edmonton is, look at a map. It is damn sure not the temperatures. Temperature-wise, springtime does not exist past, what, the 52nd parallel? (flight school, yet another unfinished project of mine. Direction means nothing to me, I get stuck in traffic circles for hours, can't see how that would be any different in the air). 9 months of winter and 3 months of summer is enough to send a good portion of the population into a mental institute. There is a good chance if you know someone from Edmonton, they checked themselves in at one time or another (some of us just do it for the heat though, so don't judge).

Okay. So your thinking, well, the snow melts, right? Wouldn't that make it obvious when the temperatures are rising ever so slightly? No. There is not much difference between -50C (January) and -10C (April). Both are f***ing cold. And the snow does not melt until June. Which is about the same time the sun stops setting for a few weeks. Furthermore, the sun shines 90% of the time, so if you never leave your house (and if you have a reliable heat source, you try not to) you wouldn't know when April hits. No. Here in Alberta, and I think I speak for northern BC as well, you know it's spring when: people stop showing up for work, PHD dissertations are abandoned, pickled herring flavoured potato chips start showing up on the shelves at grocery stores, people are being kicked out of restaurants on 35cent wing nights, and the traffic (okay, all 20 cars) on the stretch of road between Edmonton and Calgary dubbed the Alberta Auto Bahn goes from 160km/hour to 40km/hour. I call it, "The Weed That Stopped Time".

See, we have nothing else up here. We don't have apple orchards or...water. We get the odd rainstorm that escapes the mountains that fill up the silt lakes. That's an all day event to watch one of those coming in, by the way. Nothing really blocking our view. The first weed shipment of the season basically means that the 1000km stretch of road between us and the growers in BC is no longer 100% covered in black ice. So if you smoke weed or not, the feeling is mutual. Spring is in the air. Lets go skiing.