Near Death/New Life.

What a fun weekend.

This weekend I was able to enjoy great times with my girlfriend, help a friend redo his kitchen, ride a snowmobile for the first time, have a good time at a friends show downtown, and managed to fit a solid Godflyte TGIFridays run at midnight in there too.

One of the many highlights to this weekend though would have to be my snowmobiling experience. After helping my friend Stephen work on his house Saturday, we decided that we needed to take a break and end the day with a fun snowmobiling run. Having never ridden a snowmobile before, I was easily convinced.

When we arrived at his parents house (where the snowmobile is) we suited up in Carhartt snowmobiling/work suits. I was already feeling pretty BA because I was about to ride a snowmobile, but the Carhartt apparel topped it off. I was ready for anything. I obviously didn't know what was in store.

We made our way out to the snowmobile and when Stephen uncovered it I was fairly surprised at the size of the thing. It was much bigger then I expected. Then he started it up. It sounded a whole lot meaner then I expected. I was starting to question if this was a good idea. Then Stephen took it for a "warm up" lap around his backyard while I stood and looked on. One thing you have to know about Stephen is that this man loves to live as close to the edge as he can get. So his warm up lap consisted of him riding a wheelie on his snowmobile throughout his entire backyard. At this point I was 110% sure this was not a good idea. However, that has never stopped me from doing something stupid in the past, so I hopped on. I had a feeling this particular snowmobile wasn't made for two 6'4" guys, but nevertheless we were off on my first snowmobiling experience.

We began weaving through trees and going down trails in his backyard. I was having a blast. Never did I ever think a snowmobile could be this fun and this fast. Half way through our trail riding Stephen stopped at the top of a hill to inform me that his brakes seemed to be acting up on him and that sometimes they weren't working as good as he would like them to. JUST what I wanted to here as we were halfway through the trails. However, we weren't going to let brakes stop us from having a good time, so we continued through the trails. Then we came to his neighbors open field. I knew what was about to happen and as soon as I thought it sure enough, Stephen opens up the throttle and and next thing you know it we are doing 70 mph through a snow covered field. I didn't even think a snowmobile could go that fast, boy was I wrong!

The next thing I know we are slowing down. I begin to loosen my bear hug grip around Stephen thinking that we were slowing down to take a break. Ha. Once again, boy was I wrong, because the next thing I see is a snow drift in the middle of our path and Stephen had no intentions of going around it. We hit the drift at about 40 mph and sail through the air. After we landed safely, we went back to check to see how much air we got...15 FEET OF AIR from when the back track left the drift to when it landed in the snow again. That we insane! I told Stephen we HAD to do it again (amazing how dumb adrenaline can make you). So that is exactly what we did, and we probably got the same amount of air, but instead of going back to check the distance on the second jump, Stephen opens up the throttle again and we begin to head home. Once again we are flying through the field at 70 mph, snow flying up in our faces, when all of a sudden at the top of a hill that we were climbing was another snow drift!! The words going through both of our heads at that moment are not exactly appropriate for this particular blog, but here is a hint, the all contain four letters. Stephen immediately tries to hit the brakes, but as we learned earlier in the trip, they didnt tend to work that well, so we hit the snow drift at 60-70 mph! Yeah...not good. My feet go flying of the back end of the snowmobile, yet I am still holding on for dear life around Stephen's waist, resembling the "superman" trick most "X-gamers" would be familiar with. As we are flying through the air, the back end of the snowmobile begins to fall and become perpendicular with the ground. NOT GOOD. After what felt like an eternity flying through the air, the snowmobile hit the ground, followed closely there after by our butts...kinda. Stephen's hand went flying off the handlebars and my feet we still dangling over the back of the snowmobile and I am just praying that they don't get caught up in the track!! I managed to get them back on the snowmobile and we go the snowmobile to come to a stop. As soon as we realized that we were both ok and free from injury/death, we began laughing. We both couldn't believe we cheated death like that and came out in one piece. After laughing for about 10 minutes, we had to go back and find how much air we got. We drove up to the track left the drift and walked to where it had landed and it was about 35-40 feet of air!!! We were X-Games material...Doubles snowcross, be ready for it.

It was a great weekend!!

much love.