by Kim Bonnalie

Created on: January 08, 2009

I would like to be able to site here and say I will live until I'm 100, but the thought seems almosthilarious. Especially after my new found love: sledding. I know that, as a 21 year old, I should have not only loved sledding as a child but almost outgrown this insatiable appetite for putting every bone in my body at great risk of breaking, shattering and being anything but straight. I think perhaps its equivalent to jumping off the trampoline into the pool or snowboarding off the roof. When you're a kid these things seem fun. There is no risk in it because kids don't see risk in anything. As an adult all you can think of is how bad it would hurt to break your leg and the hospital bills would pile up, and you would miss work, and on and on and

But to be honest with you, I thought I sledded as a kid and I thought I love it, but I really don't think that you can thoroughly enjoy something that crazy without understanding the risks in it. Now that I know hitting that 127 foot tree is going to break my leg, and that it hurts when my bottom is drug across the snow behind a snowmobile at 30 up and down the hills it is all the moregratifying.

I must say I had my first adult sledding experience over the holiday break this year. I had butterflies from the get go (rightly so) because when I layered on some p.j.'s and windbreaker pants and said "I'm ready." my husband laughed and said "here" as he handed me his full-on one piece Carhart body suit(there's your first sign genius!) and his boots that must weigh 10 lbs and are everything-proof (oh dear)! So after some holding down of dinner from nerves, 3 pairs of hunting socks, 2 sweatshirts, a hat, scarf, inner gloves and outer gloves I would've dropped to my knees and prayed had I been able to move at all. Just as I was thinking my husbands friends were planning a joke on me with this outing I saw the hill.

In northern Idaho it's gorgeous with tall trees and rivers and rocks and bushes and all sorts of things that were beautiful at one point in time and hazardous at this particular moment. I never knew I would be scarred of a two foot tall bush. Telling myself the bush wouldn't be too bad, I was handed old beer bottles with lantern fuel and a rope to light the berms down their 350 yard 15% graded homemade ski hill. Now I was convinced there were going to hurt me..then my husband topped it off by handing me goggles. They weren't going to hurt me; they were going to KILL me!

As I stood at the top of the hill feeling half like the Michelin tire man and half like an aspiring Sonny Bono, I couldn't help but think to myself that if it were clear the stars would be beautiful and I supposed the best way to start out the new years was scared and screaming like hell, because it could only get better.

I settled down with my husband best friend on this gigantic doughnut thing and took a deep breath which I exhaled by screaming at the top of my lungs all the way down. I tried closing my eyes but was to scared and holding them open was just as scary. By the time I was at the bottom I was shaking from fear and still screaming. I was enveloped by this utter bad-ass feeling, as I had survived the biggest baddest hill I'd ever seen in my lifeand just had to do it again!

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