Well shit man, it’s been a pretty measly winter here in Minnesota to this point. No snow, no cold, what’s an outdoorsman to do? Have a seat, big dog, and I’ll tell ya.
Without snow you can’t really snowmobile. Even though I’ll never get sick of wearing my Arctic Cat gear everywhere I go that lime green and navy blue jumpsuit is a sad reminder that any other year I’d already be out on the trails tearing it up, dodging trees and trying not to run into barbed wire. I was just talking to my neighbor about how bummed I’ve been you know, not snowmobiling, and he reminded me that the best part of snowmobiling is skimming that bad boy over the water, praying that you’re not going to get sucked into the icy depths.
Well shit, I thought, I can do that right now. I don’t need snow for that! So lately I’ve been going out after dark and just tearing ass around the lakeshore, skimming the hell out of my sled. It’s pretty boss, and I’ve only lost two snowmobiles so far. Oh, and my cousin’s in the hospital with some serious hypothermia-induced brain damage but fuck it, that’s what we have insurance for, right?
I’m sure you know that as a truck driver for a food distributor I get a lot of cool perks, right? Well I do, and one of them is that I get to go to a bunch of celebrity golf tournaments all summer with my supervisor. The thing is, I kinda suck, and it’s pretty embarrassing playing with someone like Darby Hendrickson, talking about the Wild like a normal guy and then shanking my tee shot like a bitch. So hell, I figured with no snow on the ground I might as well keep up on my golf game while I still can. So now I just grab a sixer outta the fridge and just walk out onto one of these “closed” courses to get a few holes in. I’ve only had to hide from the cops once or twice.
Did you used to play hockey? I played hockey man, state champs. Fucking Rosemount, class of ’92. Blew my knee out my freshman year at Winona State – this is back before they went to that Minnesota State bullshit. Anyway, I still play but the ice has been shit, you can’t get any speed going. But check this out – that doesn’t matter if you’re always going downhill. That Red Bull Crashed Ice thing blew my mind. So I built a track in my backyard. You gotta come over and try this out man, you start up on the roof and just fly down this thing! I haven’t quite figured out how to stop before you crash into the fence yet but I’ve got a couple of old mattresses there to soften the blow. Once I get it all situated it will absolutely be worth my kids’ broken legs.
So you see? Don’t let this warm weather get you down. There’s plenty of things to do until we finally get that snowfall, and lemme tell you what, it’s coming. Make no mistake about it. I feel it in my bum knee.
