I came across a geek sled today, basically a saucer sled, slightly reshaped, and painted to resemble the Millenium Falcon from Star Wars, as seen here:
Even though that is kind of neat looking, my first thought was that the front end of that sled is going to dig in and youre going to go ass over heels tumbling down the hill. Which, you know, kind of is the point of sledding sometimes, right?
All which reminds me, that here on the east coast of Virginia (with out crappy yearly snow output), it has been along time since I have been sledding. I only lived in Illinois for a year with my family, but I remember sledding on some of the hills in the farm lands outside of town with my aunts, uncles, and cousins. Then after that occaisionally my parents and I would go back to Illinois around Christmas time to visit family, we would go sledding. I remember when my grandmother moved to a farm house outside of town, my cousin and I took our sleds and hopped the fence to go sledding down the hill in the cow pasture across from her house. It was a little bit of a daredevil hill since the hill flattened out near the bottom and dropped about 5 or 6 feet to frozen creek. It became a little game to see who can hold on the longest before jumping off so you would go over the edge and fall down the creek.
But like anyone, I am sure people have their favorite sleds. We always had the basic two, the long plastic sled and the saucer like thes:
The long sled was great for 2 or 3 of you (depending on your size) to go down the hill together, but the saucer....oh the saucer. Who didnt have one of these things going down the hill, hitting a bump, and go spinning like a top until you got thrown off or you hit a tree. You always did seem to hit a tree didnt you? I think those winter trees just waited for kids to come down the hill in a saucer and then run out in front of them.
But, you can always make due with some handy objects around the house, right? I remember in college we ..uhm..."borrowed" lunch trays from the cafeteria. Those were...passable. But then, if you had friends that were farmers....you cant go wrong with the 7 person tractor tire inner tube. Pile on in, and set off down the hill. Nothing funnier then watching that thing flip over and just see arms and legs and snow everywhere.
Of course, you cant top Clark Griswold and his sledding experience, can you? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaKByOtCWy4
Ahh.....man do I miss sledding. Too bad I am stuck here in Virginia next to the beach.