You know that old saying, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,”?
Well, around here it’s more like, “When life gives you snow, go sledding.” So that’s exactly what I did last week.
After the region was pelted once again with more of the white stuff, it was time to (finally) head out there and enjoy some of the snow while we had the chance – for a little while there it was kind of looking like we wouldn’t get any at all this year.
Of all the places to go sledding in Concord, none may be more popular than White Park. The hill beside the baseball field is pretty busy almost all the time – morning, noon and night – and it sees heavy use from all age groups (there may have been more parents making runs down the slope than kids last week).
Even though we haven’t had a ton of snow this winter, that hill is already packed down solid, and you really can’t make it to the top without holding onto the fence that leads the way up.
Luckily for me, I was never planning on hiking all the way to the top of the “big hill” since I had my daughter, Julia, with me. Julia is just a couple months shy of 2, and she had never been sledding before.
Before even leaving the house, I was told that I was not to take her up to the top of the big hill – that would be too dangerous and scary, her mother informed me.
Instead, we found a nice, smooth stretch off to the side of the main sledding hill, one that had been ridden on only a few times, by the looks of it. It was the perfect size for a first-timer – not too steep, but not so shallow and short that it wouldn’t be any fun.
For this little hill, there isn’t a fence or anything like that to hold onto, so you really just need to dig your feet into the snow pretty well to make it up. This hill isn’t as icy and therefore slippery as the big one, but if you’re not careful you’ll certainly go tumbling down backwards.
I really wanted to avoid this, what with the child in tow and all, so I made two separate trips – the first trip I just brought the sled to the top and left it there (turned upside down so it wouldn’t slide away), then went back down to fetch the girl, who chanted, “WHO-WANTS-SLEDDING?” the whole ride over and couldn’t wait to get going.
The trickiest part of the whole ordeal was mounting the sled and securing Julia. It was very slick at the top of that hill, so it was hard to keep the sled stationary. I pushed it as far back as I could, sat down at the far back end of the sled and hoped Julia wouldn’t wander off and end up taking the trip down the hill sans sled.
Eventually, she cooperated and let me scoop her up and put her in front of me in the plastic, toboggan-style sled. I wrapped my legs around the front of her to lock her in place, then I pushed off with my left hand, using my right to keep a firm grip on her.
Down we went, and with greater speed than I expected. I immediately was nervous for Julia, thinking it was too much, but I heard her laughing the whole way.
At the bottom, she immediately cried out, “Again!,” and I knew I had just created a sledding monster.
We’ll be back, White Park.
