Slick Sledding on the South Side....

Yesterday Jenni and I decided to go sledding. So, I of course, set out to find the best sledding hill in all of southwest Kansas. My goal was to make concentric circles in ever widening paths outward from the epicenter of Garden City (my house) until we found the perfect hill. After about 20-30 minutes of driving in cirlces I decided to go out to the country. We drove around a bit, but thought better of sledding down a hill into a yuka plant. I finally decided we would check out the sand pits. We found the perfect spot. It was a dug out area that was nearly 60ft. deep and had one perfect run from top to bottom. It was seamless, no trees or weed to be seen and the width of two sleds. I was the first to slip and slide my way down this virgin path. I sailed like a condor. It was a beautiful thing. I got up, covered in snow and yelled back to Jenni to "let her rip". Jenni came whistling down. She began to get tipsy about half way through her run and fell to the side, laughing and giggling. I began to try and make my way to her when I realized something that would have been a nice tidbit of information to know before beginning this journey. The ground underneath the snow was straight ice. You see, we had chosen the southern side of this hill, the side that never saw the sun. It was still inches thick of ice from the weeks before. Jenni and I spent at least 30 minutes making our way back to the top. At the end, I was standing on a tree about 5 feet from the lip of the crevasse. Jenni crawled up me and I pushed her to the top. I said "just leave me behind and go find some help", I knew this was the moment in the movie where the hero sacrifices himself for the damsel. She reached out her hand and said "I'm not leaving you...", powerful music began to play and I clasped her hand (the camera pulled in tight and slow motioned as the snow flew off of our gloves). I dug deep and tugged on her (fully expecting her to go plummeting back down to the bottom under the pull of my weight), but instead, some ethereal force bit into my sweet wife, and she tossed me out of that bowl of icy death to the top of the snow covered mountain. It was truly amazing, a real Christmas miracle. I laid on top for another 15 minutes trying to catch my breath and pretending like I knew everything was going to be OK...

The moral of the story...

Always Bring a Rope...