Imposter!

This post is dedicated to my dear friend, Easy Rider. ER, I appreciate your concerned email, and I admit, I am an imposter. It has been quite awhile since my last post, and I apologize to those of you who actually read this blog. I appreciate you checking back, and yes, to answer your concerns, I am alive!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. It is always a whirlwind during the holidays, and The Silent Fury and I have decided we need to make a better plan for visiting the family. We spend most of our Christmas Day in the car traveling between his mom's and dad's celebrations. It is hard to please everyone, and I think next year we are going to have to please ourselves more than anyone. I have a genuine appreciation for what my parents went through when we were kids. I cannot imagine having to lug three rowdie children all hopped up on sugar around during the holidays.

So, Christmas was wonderful. SF and I wrapped up a couple of "gag gifts" for my parents. We gave my dad a used charcoal grill for the cabin. The best present was the gift we gave to my mom. We wrapped, in a GINORMOUS box, the deer head Mike had mounted from last year. It is, in all fairness, a really nice looking mount, but seriously, GROSS. I do not even want the monstrosity in my house, and so it currently resides in the garage. I can not help but feel bad for the poor little guy every time we park the car, he looks so sad. I am torn though because he tasted so good...mmmm...sommer sausage = DELICIOUS! Alright, back to the gift opening. We, and when I say we I mean 'I', convinced my mother that it was something really nice. She started opening the gift thinking it was a bird house or something she actually wanted. She lifted the lid to the box and SCREAMED and RAN INTO THE DINING ROOM! Her face was all red and she was breathing heavily and I could NOT STOP LAUGHING! Oh, it still makes me laugh! Of course this did not make her very happy, but she was a good sport about it. I know she is going to be pretty skeptical anytime she opens a gift wrapped in a large box. I cannot blame her. SF and I just wanted to give her something nice to hang over the fireplace at her new lake home, but apparently she does not agree.

In other news, my parents bought a new lake home and we all went up there after Christmas to go snowmobiling. There is only one way to describe that place: A-W-E-S-O-M-E! My mom would move up there today if she could, but there is something called responsibility that she has to take care of first, and then comes retirement. Soon enough Ma, soon enough...

The Silent Fury and I went up to the cabin to meet up with the fam the friday after Christmas. I was super excited because my brother, A-Dizzle, and sister-in-law, L-Dawg, had just bought a new snowmobile, and I couldn't wait to see it. SF and I got to the cabin around 9pm, just in time to see the crew (consisting of my cousins, brother and sister-in-law) off on the sleds. They were going to go out on a night ride so L-Dawg could get some bonding time with her new sled. I got to glance at her new ride only briefly through the window, and then they were off to the trails. My aunts, cousin, dad and SF dove into a rousing game of Zioncheck after the crew left. It was not a full 30 minutes later, we got a call from my younger brother from the trail. My sister-in-law had an accident with her new sled. She had hit a tree and totaled her sled. They were not sure of the extent of her injuries, but she was conscious and somewhat responsive. It was quite possibly one of the worst phone calls to get. Albeit, it is not the worst phone call we have received in my family, it is definitely in the top three, ok maybe it is number two.

Anyway, my parents and I drove down to the mouth of the trail where the accident occurred. L-dawg had hit a tree about 3/4 mile from the highway on the trail. The first we got to see her when the paramedics were pulling her off the trail on a stretcher. This was not any normal stretcher though. They had a big machine that looked like a snowmobile trail groomer, and I have attempted to find a decent picture of one, but I cannot. I am not making this up, seriously, trail groomers do exist, I just cannot prove it. Anyway, the trail groomer thing had her strapped-in on the back and she was harnessed down to a body board and in a neck brace. They put her in the ambulance waiting on the side of the road and shortly took off to the hospital. A-Diggity road to the hospital with one of the Sheriffs and my mom.

There were about three or four Sheriffs out at the scene, two on snowmobiles and another taking pictures of the accident scene and another that was....ok maybe there were only three. My younger brother drove L-Dawg's sled up to the mouth of the trail by the highway so my dad could come back and pick it up with the trailer. The Sheriffs that was documenting the scene, took out his flashlight and shined it on the sled. I could not believe what sat in front of me. The sled did not look like she should have survived. When I took my snowmobile safety course, they showed us pictures of sleds from accidents where the drivers were being careless and were drinking and wrapped their sled around a tree or a sign post or rolled it or whatever and only a couple had survived their accidents. That is what L-Dawg's sled looked like. I still can not believe it.

L-Dawg's accident was not due to her being careless, reckless, or driving too fast. It appears, from the tracks left from the accident, that she took a wide turn, her ski got caught off the trail and the rest of her snowmobile followed. She hit the tree before she had time to react. L-Dawg, after spending the weekend in the hospital, is going to be ok. She faired with a broken arm, two broken ribs and bruised liver, and will be going in tomorrow to have surgery on her arm. That is my exit call. I need to give her a ringy-ding-ding and wish her luck tomorrow. Until next time!