warm sledding

The day before the Soldier Hollow tubing closed for the season we finally went and used our groupon passes. 

We invited Uncle Merrill to come with us which made it a complete PARTY!!

It was the perfect day to go since the sun was shining. 

The snow was melty and soft. 

Can you see from the valley below that there wasn't snow anywhere else? 

After a couple of runs we had to take off our coats and slide in our t-shirts. 

It was perfectly FUN!!!

Bubba helped us go super-de-duper fast!

Kaden is our kid who gets nervous doing new things.  He wouldn't even follow us up to the tubes, but actually went back in the lodge without telling me.  He was sitting on the bench when I found him. 

He said he didn't want to go tubing, he hates tubing and he just wants to go back home. 

I knew if I could get him to go once then I would have him hooked... just like everything else he gets scared to do. 

What else works but a big bribe to go to Dairy Keen in Heber, with a huge shake to top it all off if he would just go once?

It worked. 

He went down one run and then was a crazy boy after that wanting to go again and again and again!

 

Ady modeling the valley below.

 

 

 

This picture was taken right before our last run down the hill...

right before we had a near death experience. 

We decided to all go down together so we could laugh and scream and go really really fast.

Ady was soaked and didn't want to go one last time.  Her toes were freezing so she wanted to get a head start in drying off.  Kaden didn't want to laugh and scream and go really really fast so he didn't join us either.  It ended up being Merrill, Emmy and me.

 

As we hit the bottom of the hill, the place where you are supposed to stop and pick up your tube and get off the track, we were still going really fast.  The kid working that bottom post was yelling at us "DRAG YOUR FEET!!!"  Both Merrill and I did.  I dug my boots in until I thought they would fall off.  It wasn't until we ran through 2 of the 4 bright orange fences did we stop.  Emmy was crying and we were all bewildered with adrenaline. 

Merrill and I laughed, thinking it was sort of fun and funny...

then I saw that we actually broke all the poles that were supporting the bright orange fence and saw some workers coming over to survey the scene.  We did some damage.

 

After we turned in our tubes and started walking back to the parking lot did I see that if we would have gone through all 4 of those bright orange fences we would have also fallen off a 20 foot drop off landing in the parking lot.

Yikes!

That was a close one.

BUT, it was a super duper fun time!  And we ended it with a yummy meal at our favorite Heber restaurant, Dairy Keen.