sledding '04

Since it's been snowing a lot, my friends and I decided to hit the slopes near our house, a small wooded area known as the North Park "line of trees." The first hill was covered with icy bumps, but didn't hurt me because I went down on a hard plastic sled; the hill bellied out into a creek, iced over from the snow and cold. I bailed out just in time, but my sled went flying into the water. The next time I went down that hill I hit a tree, but had slowed myself down enough so that I didn't get the wind knocked out of me. One of my friends, Jason (name changed), went once, on one of those sheet sleds, and he nearly crashed into the stairs leading down from a gazebo. We went into the woods, and hit a hill there. Jason went down a few times; as the entire trail down the slope was drenched with sheets of ice, the ride was unpredictable. Jason decided to go down skeleton-style (bad move), and at the last moment, as me and Don (name changed) readied to stop him from flying into the creek, the sled shifted, and a tree got him right in the ball; the board flew out from under him and rocketed into the woods. Don and I were dying laughing. When I went down, my left leg dangled, and it hit a tree; the sled swung around, and I was thrown off, rolling; the board lodged in a thicket. We went down together on a larger hill, going twenty miles an hour, and we barely missed hitting a tree; Jason's leg was grazed with the sharp ice stuck to the tree's bark; Don was going to try and stop us, and he ran out to stop us as we slid towards the tree, but he saw the tree and backed off. He stinks at stopping our sleds before they go into the trees (Jason abandoned me once and I flew into the woods, barely missing the freezing creek).

It's been a while since I've been sledding, but it was a fun time. Some things you never outgrow. I know people who refuse to do stuff like sledding because it's "immature". What a crock. A lot of times "immature" things are the funnest things to do. I can't believe how some people refuse to have fun simply because they want to look mature before the world. A Dennis the Menace cartoon clip hangs next to my closet, and it shows Dennis whispering to his friend, after seeing Margaret acting "mature", "Margaret says she's got MATURITY... I sure hope we never catch it!" Gotta hand it to good ol' Dennis, he's got it figured out.

[2/5/13: "Why the hell am I changing everyone's names?"]