One day, in my early teen years my friends got a couple of snow mobiles. The first time we got enough snow to try out the new toys my immediate thought was, "we could do some high-speed sledding if we tie some ski rope to these things." So I went home and grabbed a ski rope and a tube sled and then directed one of the girls to get on the tube while I took the driver's seat.
We went to an open lot on the other side of the neighborhood and I wish I had a picture of this lot for you. It was probably less than an acre and there were a couple of obstacles. On one side there was a little creek with banks that dropped probably 5'-6' down to the water. On the other side there were one or two small trees. Other than that, just a nice little space for us to ride around in circles.
It didn't take long for me to figure out how to really get on the gas and maintain a higher speed as I made the loop. Of course, as I gained speed I had to make wider loops. Before long my friend was no longer on the tube and found her as I came back around on the next loop. Poor girl, I had smacked her straight into the tree.
After determining she probably didn't have any broken bones, it was decided that what was most important was to keep her awake in case she had a concussion. So we got the snowmobiles back home and bribed her not to tell the parents by buying her lunch at Taco Bell. Then we pumped her full of Mountain Dew to make sure she wouldn't fall asleep and we were free and clear of trouble!
Good times.
So let's advance to 2013... Yesterday at half past noon, my phone rang and it was a friend of mine asking me if I thought we could tow a sled behind his four wheeler.
Heeheeheehee
Boy I'm telling you I hopped out of that bed so quick and found some winter gear to go play in the snow.
I got over there and he didn't have ski rope, but he had a really long rope and some carabiners. We made it work.
Unbeknownst to me, he has a racing quad, not a four wheel drive quad (I didn't know there was such a thing as a quad that wasn't four wheel drive). Whenever he tried to get the thing to go, the back tires would send snow and then mud flying high in the air trying desperately to get enough grip to move forward.
Once we got it moving I grabbed hold of the rope, hopped on the tube and we started flying across the field. There was so much snow in my face I couldn't see a thing, but I was having a blast. Next thing I knew, I felt a bump followed by the feeling of flying through the air and finally hitting the ground. I immediately felt water soaking through my Carhartts and looked down to find myself sitting in a giant mud hole. I couldn't think of anything else to do except laugh hysterically and hop back on.
The tube started loosing air after that so we tried another type of sled that really didn't work out. I was flipping off of it as soon as we started to move each time. I finally figured out that if I hung on to the rope after I flipped off, I could just let the quad drag me on my belly across the ground. Of course that also ended up a muddy mess when the downward force of me hanging on so low behind it caused the back end of the quad to sink again.
It was a good day.
It was a good day.
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