Blizzard 2008
12/22/2008 at 13:51 from (47.683479, -122.266725)
For those not living in Seattle, you should be aware that we're currently under siege by literally billions of tiny crystallized droplets of water. Never in recent memory has there been so perfect a blend of bliss and danger for Seattlites. The gears of the city have seized up. Fear and trepidation mingle with an effervescent joy and the dreams of kids large and small have come to glorious fruition.
The same words are on everybody's lips...
Snow day!
Clearly, while we've all been sledding in one way or another, not everybody has been doing so purely for pleasure. The kids and the city conspired to turn 70th into the best sledding hill in Seattle. As skiers, sledders, and boarders approached the bottom, though, it resembled more of a slalom. Abandoned cars and the spun out evidence of winter hubris awkwardly litter the curbs and sidewalks.
I must confess that Marijana has some compromising video of me overestimating my stopping power in the snow, too, plowing head-first into our garage during our inaugural slide down the driveway. I managed to bend my glasses and bruise my eye, but the most serious injury I sustained was the brutal beating my pride took in having it all caught on video.
After that brief encounter with idiocy, we decided to raise the stakes. We headed over to 70th to join the neighbor kids in screaming down one of the longest of Seattle's many steep descents. Much like cycling, the best rule to follow in sledding goes something like this: If it sucks to climb, it kicks ass to go down. This run was unique in that, although it's a big drop from 50th to Sand Point, there are two bailout points that are relatively flat.
These are key if you don't want to, say, sled into traffic or nail a cross-country skier on the Burke. They're even more important if you, like us, lack the ability to steer or orient your sled. One particularly old kid (I'd put him at about 50) bragged to us that he made it all the way from 50th to Sand Point, bailing just before the road. That's almost 10 solid blocks of continuous shredding... in the heart of a major American city!
Marijana and I didn't quite make it that far, since we were forced to repurpose our boogey boards in lieu of a proper sled. However, we did get to sample all of the fine sledding 70th had to offer, from the more popular (but less aggressive) upper half to the steeper, more violent lower half. We engaged in impromptu snowball and ice frisbee fights, attempted (sometimes against our will) some jumps, wiped out innumerable times, pretended to be draft animals, made snow angels, and just generally had a blast.
We ended the day in much the same way we started it, playing in the midst of fresh flurries. Marijana even made her first snow angel and gave a half-hearted effort at a snowman before frozen fingers and failing daylight forced us inside for a hot meal and some cocoa.
If we can manage to have this much fun during our trip, we'll have it made. All the relevant photos are in the gallery.