OK...so funnest may not be a proper word but that's what it was. Christmas Eve was at our house, which it usually is, having snacks and a funny gift exchange. On Christmas Day we went up to my wife's brothers home, which is about 2500 feet higher than Missoula and back in a canyon with steep mountains all around. About 24 inches of nice snow there. It's right behind the mountain that butts up on the University of Montana football stadium.
Everybody brought sledding saucers, inner tubes, or plastic sleds and we had a ball sledding down the hill from his front side yard clear down to the bottom of his property....about 800 yards....all downhill to a small creek. REALLY downhill!!!! By everybody, that's 35 cousins, aunts, uncles, in-laws, and an occasional stranger who wandered by lost in the winter darkness.
Our nephew (who is mentally challenged and autistic) strung up Christmas lights almost all the way down the hill from tree to tree, and our nieces had a huge bonfire going. Plus, my brother-in-law hooked up his old John Deere power take-off to a rope and an old bicycle wheel rim way nailed to a tree down the hill and we had a rope tow back up the hill.
It was totally dark out but with all the snow and the Christmas lights we could see fairly well...(except for the tree I hit way at the bottom. It just sprung up out of nowhere.) We'd go inside every so often to check on the Packers game, but by the end of the 3rd quarter nobody gave a shit what the score was, and full of renewed strength, warmth, and white lightning, we hit the hill full blast until about midnight.
I ended up with the longest free standing run (which means nobody pushed me) of the night, ending up IN Deer Creek itself. A good 875 yard run on a slick silver saucer. Luckily Deer Creek had all of 3 inches of water in it, and I bailed out of the saucer before I drowned.
We plan to do it again next year, and Shad, our nephew, has already said he is going to ice the hill down so we can make it across the creek and halfway up the back side of Mt. Sentinel. This is gonna be fun.
Anyone for a Weenie Roast?