Edison Snow Park-ish
Deschutes River Recreation Area
Tanis and I went snow tubing on Sunday. We got packed up, grabbed the dog and some cheap $3.00 plastic disks to fly recklessly down the hill. The problem was where to go? I had heard about a hill at the end of Skyliner outside of Bend, Oregon. I had been out that way a few times and hadn't ever seen a sledding hill, but I hadn't really been looking for one either. Tanis was really excited to go and was keeping himself busy by yelling at our dog, one of his frequent activities. He drops his voice and trills it, pulling out the vowels like you imagine a demons would:
SAAAMMY!!!
It was odd, because that's the way I do it when I get frustrated with Sammy. My child is a living mirror of me, my words, my mannerisms. It's not a mirror I asked for but a mirror none-the-less. I don't like what I see and hear sometimes because my kid sounds like a flat-out pisshead. Which isn't what I want to be, but I think I really tend towards. Which is funny, because since I intentionally try to tone down my pissheadedness, I wonder what people would think if I just dropped all my blast shields and went full force. I am not sure how long a justified homicide would have to wait before it took a turn down my road.
Just outside of Bend we saw a Sheriff's Jeep cutting off the road. Evidently they were "looking for a deceased body." Translation: Ol' Boy Ate His Round. So we asked the Deputy where a good place to sled was and he told me up by Bachelor. We drove out to Mount Bachelor, stopping at each park along the way, no sledding and no dogs. We pulled into the last park and saw a ton of park rangers and a ton of snowmobilers running around. Couldn't risk letting the dog off the leash, and that would be a real pain in the ass. We turned around and decided to head out to Sunriver where their might be more parks. By this time, the enthusiasm had really drained from both of us. It was a bit like watching This is Spinal Tap with the band lost in the myriad of tunnel under the theater they were playing in.
We found a hill on the side of the road with a bunch of people sledding. This was the only sledders we had seen. The hill was a lot of fun. I would take the run first, get my camera ready and take pictures and video of him flying down the hills. We played long enough for him to get tired and take a little spill (last video). I was surprised at how fast he flew down that hill. I could see it bumping and jumping underneath him as he caught some involuntary air. Below are some videos I took of Tanis coming down the hill. Click on them and you will download the videos. They aren't too big, about 320kb size. They aren't very good in quality, but you get the general idea of what was going on.
