Tired of the snow yet?

For those of you who are somehow unaware, New England’s been getting a lot of snow lately. It’s been so cold here that none of it has time to melt before the next storm. This week it has snowed every day.
Today I decided to make the best of it. I rallied up my younger brothers, threw on my snow clothes (which, really, consisted of a number of brightly colored, mismatched, semi-water proof items that I found scattered throughout my house) and prepared to brave the great outdoors.
I’ve always prided myself at being better at everything than anyone else and so when my brothers excitedly showed me the little sledding track they had created, I was not to be outdone.


I need to take a detour here and explain how the yard is set up so you can fully appreciate my work. We live at the end of a dead end road: no cul-de-sac, the street just stops. The plows have been pushing all of the snow on our street into this massive, 15’ tall mound in front of our house. I decided that THIS was to be the starting point of the track. From there it would slide down into the front yard, through a couple of trees in the side yard, curve and drop you off in the back yard. Since I’m not the best at painting a picture with my words, here’s a crudely drawn rendering of the track I made.

There was much encouragement from my siblings in the form of things like, “Wow, this is going to be the best track ever!” and “You’re so much cooler than other old people!” After an hour or two I finally had it all set up. There was a 15’ stair case made of snow to get you to the top, big snow barriers to stop you from hitting the trees (they worked sometimes), curves to shoot you around the house and a big pile to assure your survival as you came over the 4’ drop into the backyard.
We took turns sledding down it, but soon after, the boys were called in for dinner. Being determined to perfect “the coolest track ever”, I decided to give it another test drive. This time, it worked far better than ever before. I shot through the yard like a greyhound on speed. Suddenly I realized I was approaching the drop into the back yard and I was off course. There was no way I was going to hit the pile we made to stop us from hurting ourselves. I attempted to bail from the sled, but it was too late: I was in mid-air. My life flashed before my eyes. I put my arms out to stop my face from hitting first but wound up pushing an elbow up into my stomach upon impact, successfully knocking the wind out of myself. I lay there for a while, gasping and staring at the “safety pile” I had missed my less than a foot.

So that was my day. All in all I’d say it was a victory. After all, I earned the title of “DOUBLE hardcore!” for taking that spill.


Here are some real life pictures.