A Hole in the Ice and a Hole in My Shoe

Around this time of year, the weather is turning from the icy snows of winter to the sunny skies of spring. However, there is an unpleasant transition. As the weather gets warmer and the sun shines brighter, The snow doesn't merely disappear. It melts. And then the ground is already saturated with water, so giant puddles form all over the place. The newly exposed grass is still brown and dry, and the mud carries an odor which brings back memories of petting zoos and goats. Frosty the Snowman's Winter Wonderland has turned into something more like Shrek's Swamp.

This could be a good idea of how things look around here.

This wet weather can really put a damper on getting places as well. For instance, there's this lake on my college campus called Reflection Lake. It's not the nicest lake in the universe, but it's a lot better than our other lake, known as Camp Lake. Actually, people aren't sure if Camp Lake is a lake. Or if it's even water. It's more like a giant puddle of Vaseline that the space aliens use to lubricate their ship while making a pit stop. Anyway, back to Reflection Lake. That's the nicer lake on campus, where people like to get away from the business of life or enjoy a bonfire or go fishing. My friend Kenny and I were discussing the possibility of heading down there sometime, however the trail is still too muddy-puddly-snowy to take easily.
However, this conversation did remind me of one particular trip I made down to Reflection Lake a long time ago...Except things were still a bit more icy.
The day began with the announcement that the sledding hill had closed down for the week due to weather conditions. Unfortunate, but not overly depressing. From there, the day seemed pretty normal. I was walking around campus, running some errands, when the thought came upon me like a Black Plague upon Europe. "You know, it's a nice day. I might just take a walk down to Reflection Lake." Of course, this sounds like a wonderful idea, until you remember the muddy weather. And the fact I had a giant hole in my shoe. I'd been meaning to replace those shoes for several weeks now, but never got around to it. But none of this stopped me from embarking on the adventure.

At least I had shoes.

My first obstacle was the path...or rather, a strip of dirt/mud/Play-Doh that happened to flow downhill through the forest. Said substance almost was like quicksand and tried to seep around my feet...and into the hole in my shoe. Consequently, I had to watch my every step, making sure I didn't end up permanently becoming part of the path. If you don't believe me, I had seen proof. Some footsteps faded slowly away in the mud, some tire tracks got stuck and ended where they were, and a dinosaur tail was sticking out of the mud in one place.
Eventually, I did get down to the lake, and it was beautiful as normal. It was still frozen over, so I thought "Y'know, I should try walking across this potentially unstable ice while nobody is around to rescue me." Of course, about ten steps onto the ice, my foot goes through into the ice-cold liquid...and, of course, the foot that goes through is the one with the holey shoe. So now not only is my foot muddy, it's also cold and wet. I eventually backtrack across the ice and get back to shore.
From there, I had to decide how to get back. There was the long way around the lake, which was just snow and possibly a lot nicer of a trail than the mud trail. And the mud trail wasn't really something I wanted to take again. Then there was the third and final path, which led in front of the sledding hill, which was mysteriously shut down earlier that day. I chose the snow path. It was alright for about fifty feet. Then my holey shoe fell off in the snow. After thirty seconds of hopping around like a march hare, I finally toppled face first into the snow. "Okay," I said. "Not this way." After slipping my muddy, icy, snowy shoe back on my frozen foot, I headed for the sledding hill.
I found out why the sledding hill was closed down. All the snow on the hill had melted and flowed to the bottom, forming a lake to rival Camp Lake. And so I had to walk around the icy perimeter of this lake, getting my feet even more wet than before. But finally, I was free and able to run on dry ground.

Liam Neeson, you do not know my suffering.

Needless to say, once I had the chance, I bought new shoes and threw out the old ones.