What do Clevelanders do in the winter? Before actually moving here, I imagined Clevelanders hibernated from late November until early April. Not true! Sure, it’s cold and snowy for four months or so, but that’s no excuse to stay inside. Many native Clevelanders, in fact, have told us repeatedly to embrace the winter. So, embrace we did (or tried).
In such an outing, Steve and I decided to check out the frozen Lake Erie. Mind you, this was early March so it was tolerable compared with February, the coldest on record for the region. Despite the warmer weather, the frozen lake did not disappoint. To view the frozen tundra, we strolled along Edgewater Park, another greenspace maintained by the Cleveland Metroparks system. From the signs it seems this park is popular in the summer for some swimming and picnics (Figure 1). On this particular day, we saw people walking on the frozen lake, not swimming in the lake. I wasn’t brave enough to walk on water, so we just walked on the paved paths and marveled at the landscape (Figure 2). We’ll be back this summer to view Lake Erie in its liquid form. Maybe I’ll be brave and stick my toe in the water.
Figure 1. Lake Erie in March. Enter water from the beach? Sorry, not right now.
Figure 2. Frozen Lake Erie. Is this the arctic? No, it’s Cleveland!
