Vernal equinox today, 1st day of spring, sunny, busy W and SW winds, 70 F !!! With temps getting to 70 F today after a long winter, lots of people out along the Charles to enjoy Mother Nature's early treat of summer-like weather. Heavy pedestrian, bicyclists, inline and roller bladers, dog walkers, kids biking and baby stroller traffic along Charles River Esplanade and Paul Dudley White bike paths; lots of hard braking, then rapid accelerations needed to weave around all the people out + about. Several areas of bike path impassable, due to Charles still being in flood from last weekend's 3-day Nor'easter rain and wind storm --(some areas around Boston received rainfall storm totals of 6 to 11 inches (would have been 5 to 9 ft of snow had temps been just 10 degrees F colder last Sat, Sun, and Mon !! ) )-- out in Waltham + Watertown segments, though some brave mtn bikers pedalled on through, getting their shoes, socks and about a foot of their lower pant/jean legs soaked. Had to detour around these impasses using parallelling city streets. Coffee break w/ slice of blueberry cheesecake at former-Charlestown-Navy-Yard area coffee shop, across the street from my old 8th Ave. apartment bldg ( lived there - Constitution Qtrs - for three years back in the mid '80s, while working at MIT Energy Lab on a solar photovoltaic demonstration project for rooftop residential systems, w/ 6 prototype systems built at end and to the side of a runway at Hanscom Airport in Bedford near the Concord and Lincoln town lines, and monitored for 5 years ). Note heart rate increased dramatically during return trip due to W and SW headwinds of 15 to 20 mph gusting to 30 ahead of an approaching cold front sliding in from the NW.