Sledding

Today we decided to shake off some of our sadness and go sledding. Rocket Boy brought back a double inflatable sled from his last trip to Boulder and we wanted to try it out. The only problem was: where was the snow? There certainly isn't any in Ridgecrest, though it's rained the last couple of days.

We decided to drive to Kernville. To do so, we took Highway 178 over Walker Pass. There was a little snow around Walker Pass, but not much, and none at all in Kernville. It's about the same elevation as Ridgecrest, so I don't know what we were thinking. We had lunch at a doughnut shop there and asked the owner where we could find snow. He suggested Alta Sierra. We had never heard of that, but it was easy to get to. We went south out of Kernville to Highway 155, and then wound our way up a mountain.

Alta Sierra is about 3000 feet higher than Kernville. After driving uphill for a while and seeing nothing, all of a sudden there was snow! Everywhere! The babies in their carseats noticed it too and began to point and comment unintelligibly. Signs popped up telling us chains were required (we don't have any, but the Subaru's all-wheel drive is usually enough). So here was our snow, but where could we go sledding? Eventually we found the entrance to Greenhorn Mountain Park, and we decided to park there and just climb up the hill a little bit, and that kind of worked.

RB and I put on our winter gear first. Then we re-shoed the babies (they always take their shoes and socks off in the car), threaded their new mittens on strings through their coats, and put them into said coats and mittens. RB dragged the sled up the hill and set a baby in each seat. They were off.

The snow was actually horrible. It was several feet deep and crusted over, so every time I took a step, I sunk deep down into it (this is called post-holing) but I never knew how far I was going to sink because it was so crusty. I was sure I was going to twist my knee and/or ankle, and after just a little bit of that I headed for the car. Actually I crawled back to the car on my knees. Part of the time I scooched back on my bottom.

RB is always more comfortable in snow than I am, having grown up with it, so he was OK. But as he pulled the sled, Baby B, who was sitting in the back seat, would sometimes flip over backwards into the snow. Desperate crying would ensue until he was rescued. Eventually the crying got so desperate that RB brought Baby B back to me for comforting. Then RB sat on the sled, with Baby A in the back seat, and they slid together a little bit, but then Baby A went head over heels into the snow, crying ensued, and they both returned to the car. We took off all our wet coats and whatnot, the babies helpfully removed their shoes and socks, we gave them each a blanket to cuddle, and we started back downhill.

Of course nothing could be done about my wet pants (from sliding down on my rear), but I didn't really mind. We went back to Kernville hoping for a cafe mocha, but all the stores were closed (it was almost 4 pm). So we drove home to Ridgecrest, changed into dry clothes, and had pancakes.