Familiar place, but a new perspective on a snow day

alanafrew
Mar 1, 2015
3 min read

As many of you know, Cincinnati dealt with a lot of snow and cold the week of February 15-21, which caused many schools to be delayed or closed many days.

Whenever the "white death" blankets outside of your home, your first thought is either, "It's so pretty! I'm so glad I can enjoy looking at it from inside all day" or "Oh great. This is really going to suck to drive through and get to work." Lucky for me, I live close to campus and work on campus, so any day that UC is closed, I'm off work for the day. This is nice until I start missing too many days and I don't get the dependable paycheck I expect.

At first, I was really excited for the first two snow days UC received. I was getting so exhausted from school and I really needed a break. I wasn't even looking for a day off. I just wanted a delay and really didn't expect everything that we ended up getting.

After four or five days of being stuck inside, I needed to be out in the fresh air, so my friend and I decided to meet at Macs. On the way there I had to walk through campus, a place I had seen so many times, but never experienced like this.

For the first time in my college career, I was in complete awe of campus. There had been many times I felt campus was beautiful and I wandered around because I wanted to take it all in, but that day was breathtaking. Tons of snow covered campus and there was a silence that put a pause on everything except for the large snowflakes falling from the sky. It really felt as if time stood still. I couldn't get over the fact that I had to head over to Macs since my friend was waiting on me, but I didn't want to becuase I didn't want to miss this last chance to enjoy campus as a college student in the snow. It was somewhat emotional for me to comprehend.

I got to Macs for a bit, had a late lunch with my friend and then headed home. I went through campus again, not experiencing the same moment on campus I had earlier, but it was still nice. As I was heading towards my normal path of heading home by cutting through the EPA parking lot, I started getting the idea of taking a detour through Burnet Woods instead. Though this massive, urban escape is seconds from UC's campus, many students don't visit it. Knowing how gorgeous it was outside that day, I knew I wouldn't regret checking it out at least. I wasn't disappointed.

Only minutes into walking down the road that cuts through the wood, I felt as if I was in a magical place. Everything was snow covered with very few footprints in the snow. I got closer to the epicenter of the woods and noticed a little dock to my right where I could look out at the lake. The steps were tricky to go down in the snow, but worth the view as I looked upon a massive frozen pond. I gazed over at some very brave (or very stupid) souls who decided to venture out on the ice, thinking to myself that I could never get myself to do that. I went a bit farther and got to the shelter, kids playground and a planter, which some Clifton residents decided to make a snowman on. Quite frankly, I was exhausted from walking through the deep snow, but as I took a shortcut to get out of the woods, I was so glad I made the trip.

This morning, as I watched a CBS Sunday Morning segment on Yellowstone National Park and how the park is a completely different atmosphere during the winter, I noticed the same goes for any place you're at during different seasons. Everyone was stuck inside to playing out in the snow, building snowmen, having a snowball fight or sledding. Though I technically didn't travel that far that week, I felt like I traveled to a different world or atmosphere the day I walked through campus and Burnet Woods. It was an incredible experience.