Simply Brilliant

A Snow Day

When I was a kid my dad used to take us for outdoor recreation all the time. There were cookouts and campouts and river trips and just daytrips to various natural sites of interest. Unfortunately this wonderful part of my childhood hasn’t been passed on to my children. I’m not sure why. In 20 years of raising eight children I have been taken them camping twice. But it isn’t like I neglect my children. We do many things together, but these things don’t include the outdoor activities of my childhood.

I guess a little nostalgia got into me on Saturday because I took four of my five younger children sledding. My 15 year old came along to help me out. We drove up the mile lane next to our home to a hill that sits at the end of lane where the road Ts off . It’s a pretty sorry sledding hill, but it’s the only place I know of. Between the weeds and sagebrush there is a little trail going up the hill made my four-wheelers. It’s plenty steep enough for one of those $3.00 plastic saucers to get up to speed with a rider or two. The problem is the bottom—after leveling out a little there comes another steep incline into the road. This would be much of a problem except that there is a little ditch about a foot deep beside the road and the road itself is gravel and mud. There is a chance that the kids won’t slide all the way to the final incline to the road.

Off goes nine-year-old Clory for the first run. She has a fun run and doesn’t make it to the final incline. Then off goes seven-year-old Lory. She stops right on the edge of the little incline, but then with a giggle she gives a little jerk of her body and slides down the incline and crashes into the bank of snow and mud that fills the ditch. She wasn’t going fast and thinks its fun. Next little five-year-old Jory scoots on down the hill. He flies over the final incline, hits the muddy snow bank where the saucer stops and he does several of those horizontal rolls out into the road. He looks up at me with wide eyes and I’m wondering if there are going to be tears. Then he grins and with an exuberant yell he runs back up the mountain.

I can see that something needs to be done about the bottom of the run. Someone is going to get hurt. I could call the whole thing off, but then I would the saddest kids in Juab County. Instead I go home and get a snow shovel. When I come back the kids are still making runs, but they are dragging their feet at the bottom or bailing out of the saucer at the end. This is ruining a perfectly fine run. I shovel snow into the ditch so there isn’t a sudden stop at the end. Clory’s next run works perfectly except that skids out onto the gravely, muddy road. This isn’t good for the saucer.

Rory, my 15 year old begins shoveling snow onto the road to give more sliding room at the end. Lory comes scooting down the hill, misses the usual path on the final incline and crashes into the bank of snow giving herself quite a whiplash and hitting her back on the ridge of snow. Ow. If that had been me that crash would have ended the outing right there. Lory cries a little and moans and asks why she had to miss the path, but she does all this as she heads back up the hill for another run.
Rory makes adjustments to the angle of the snow path going into the road and I stand at the point that Lory left the main trail to help keep the next rider on track.

Finally we start to get it right. The kids come shooting down the hill, level off, hit the final incline, and then scoot out across the road to the point where our hand made snow trail ends and they crunch to a stop on the gravel. We did have a crash or two when they missed the main trail on one side or the other, but Rory was there to catch them.

We tried riding the snow shovel down the hill, but had a hard time keeping it pointed down hill. It was fun anyway. Before I knew it we had been there for three hours and it was time to go home. On the way to the van there was a massive snowball fight with all the young kids against Rory. In spite of being outnumbered Rory had the snow shovel and was able to do massive damage. We finally got home where we ate homemade bread and drank hot chocolate. It was a perfect end to a great morning!

posted by PapaT @ 9:28 AM