Things I dream of doing if the temperature ever gets above 60 again …

Run in shorts. I having nothing against running tights and I’m not an exhibitionist. But you can’t truly appreciate the freedom running offers unless you’re in shorts and a sweaty t-shirt. (And, to a growing number of runners, no shoes.)

Paddle Brice Creek. I’ve yet to paddle Brice Creek. Yet every year around this time, about the time the spring peepers loudly let us know that spring is coming — it really is! — I think about this 12-mile paddle trail that begins in the Croatan National Forest and meanders into New Bern’s riverfront. I think about slowly drifting through a coastal hardwood forest for a stretch, then navigating swampland. I think about how there’s no better way to spend a sunny, 65-degree day in early March than paddling a coastal creek. I think about what a great solo trip it is because of the multiple put-ins (five) and the fact that the minimal current means you can paddle upstream with relative ease, eliminating the need for a shuttle. Most of all, I think about that sunny 65-degree day and how, at some point, I’d find an opening in the canopy, tie up the Loon, lay back and catch some nice, warm rays.

Take a long bike ride. I took a 23-mile ride earlier this week and by the end of the ride had almost warmed up. Almost. If I concentrate really hard, I can almost remember that feeling of riding out in the country on a warm, sunny day. Of effortlessly pedaling past farm fields, past old barns, past patches of healthy Piedmont forest, past lakes and cows and fields wavy with some kind of grass. Watching these things flash by on the flat screen while sweating away on the trainer is not the same. Sigh.

Search for spring’s first-responder wildflowers on a hike. When the temperature has been what it’s supposed to be, rather than unseasonably cold, right about now is the time you start spotting spring wildflowers that can’t wait to get out of the ground. The dainty-but-vibrant purple leaves of hepatica, the shy flower of the mottle-leafed trout lily. Even more than Sir Walter Wally’s prediction, even more than pitchers and catchers reporting, those first wildflowers breaking through the forest’s brown carpet are assurance that spring really will happen. Really looking forward to that first hike.

Stretch out in the grass in the sun and take a nap after doing all of the above. Probably goes without saying. Thought I’d say it anyway.