Spring Time – Adventure Time

I don’t know what the weather is like where you are, but it’s starting to feel a little more like spring here. This is a great thing. After 7 months of heavy coats, boots destroyed by salt and slush, fingers and toes frozen at the bus stop – the baby rays of sunshine starting to peek through the gray April clouds is the most divine blessing this year has bestowed upon us.

Spring, of course, is the time of awakening. All your senses perk up, including the inappropriate ones, and you start to feel a little less sleepy on your 7AM commute to work. What is interesting too, is that with the onset of spring I also get this almost irresistible urge to travel, to go somewhere new, and explore this big, beautiful world that is all around me.

I feel like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, ready to face this new world and go on an adventure that would last a life time. (I love metaphors, FYI).

Of course my finances don’t allow to me to go on an adventure that would last a life time (unless I win the lottery) but discovering new places and the life starting to bloom within them is something that I strive to do every spring.

What’s important, though is not to set your expectations too high when it comes to travel. I don’t have either the money or the amount of time one would need to go away to some far away place. So what I like to do is research new spots in my city to visit. Luckily, Toronto has a lot of parks and woodsy areas, as well as just forests. So that’s what I do. On the weekends I like to go outside of the city (if a car is available) and find a forest to frolic in. But you don’t even have to go outside of the city, there are plenty of great parks within the urban limits. The brick works for example (granted all the construction kind of ruined the secluded factor) is a great place to experience spring. Lots of trees, flowers, and even wildlife that come out of hiding.

If you are patient and quite enough you will certainly see some little creature rummaging around.
Here is a list of some of my favorite inter city nature paradises (in no particular order):
Brick works (again, construction and restoration is kind of messing it up)
High park (check out the playground, it’s fun even for adults)
That park in near Casa Loma the name of which I don’t know but it’s really cool (google it)
Along the lake shore (if you’re there early morning or late there are not a lot of people and it’s kinda neat with that huge lake sprawling in front of you)
And there are many more…
In any case, what I’m saying is that you don’t have to go really far away to experience all the beauty of spring.

There are plenty of places, even in big cities, where you can just sit down on a fallen tree and feel like you’re in a different country all together. You can hear the birds sign, watch the ants work their butts off, experience the flowers blooming, smell the sweet and fresh scent of grass blades coming up.

Spring is truly a wondrous season, there is no reason for you not to experience it.

Mouse out.