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The Fifth Thing to Love About Madison: Sledding

February 14, 2007 2:12 AM

ne of the purposes of this series of posts is to get me to go out and do some things in Madison that I haven't done before, given that I probably won't be here much longer. Further, I have to admit that, while sledding is one of my favorite winter activities, I've done little to know sledding while in Madison. This is simply an unacceptable state of affairs. Therefore, I invite any interested party to come sledding with me sometime this weekend.

Now, normal sledding (that is, where you walk to the top of a hill, get on your sled, slide down, walk to the top of the hill, repeat) is fun. But we came up with a much better way of doing it in college. Both my friend Chris and I own large four-wheel-drive SUVs. One of our favorite things to do in college was go off roading (or, as Fraser put it, "'frodin'"). When I first got the seXterra, we would take it out to the cinder pits regularly. There's nothing like having all four of your vehicle's wheels off the ground simultaneously. But I digress . . .

There was this pretty awesome off road loop just outside of town. We would go there often. There were a lot of really awesome jumps. Anyway, one winter, we decided that it would be great to tie the sled to my friend's Durango with a long rope and, well, sled. So we did that, and I have to say that it's one of my fondest memories.

We did it a few times, at all times of the day. I remember one day in particular. We went out at about the middle of the day. It was cold, but not bitter. It was snowing a little, but not so much that visibility was seriously compromised. I remember being in the sled as we drove past all these trees and took various turns. There's nothing like traveling thirty miles an hour in a plastic sled on a sheet of freshly fallen snow.

Eventually, we got the idea to tie two sleds to the cars, with one person riding in each of the two tire ruts. Basically, the fun grew exponentially.

It's kinda funny. I was talking to PJ today, and he mentioned something that I hadn't really thought of. The group of friends I associated with in college are spread literally all over the world. In America, I can think of friends of mine in Arizona, California, Nevada, Michigan, New York, and New Jersey. And a bunch of people are on different continents: Mike and Dee in Asia; Fraser's in Africa; and Chris will soon be in New Zealand, which counts as part of Australia for continental purposes, right?

In any event, I thought it was an interesting thought.

More to the point, I don't know anywhere around here where we could go car sledding, but normal sledding should suffice. So who's down?



2 Comments


Dee said:

wow, i guess i had fully gone into future-farris mode at the time car-sledding happened. a little sorry i missed it, even though it sounds exTREMEly dangerous the way you've described it here.


were you at the house on the evening of stair-sledding? cusae that was fun that required no gasoline or gloves.


also, comment on my song list already!

February 14, 2007 10:56 AM



Ismael Tapia II said:

Yes, I believe that you had been subsumed by your future husband by then.

I was not at The House for stair sledding, unfortunately. I know that PJ and I (and Laurie? Was that the "Noooooooooooooooooooo. Guardrail!" night?) were in Vegas that night.

As I remember it (and I have a bad memory), we made a fairly late decision to go to Vegas because nothing was going on in Flagstaff. So we left, had a pretty shitty time, and came back in the morning to find the table covered in empty beer and liquor bottles, the remnants of an obviously awesome night. Then we heard about the stair sledding and cursed ourselves for having left.

February 14, 2007 11:37 AM



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