Tubing in the Winter

Monday, January 11, 2010, by Sherra

Seems many folk think that when you say you are taking your family tubing in January in the South that they think you are referring to tubing in a river in ice cold water – which, by the way, is often ice cold water in the summer.

News flash, in addition to sledding on cardboard boxes, garbage can lids and air mattresses, we are actually within driving distance of…

SNOW Tubing

Woo-hoo!

We planned a family day to drive to North Carolina to play in the snow. We wanted to do something fun with the kids before the darling twins are off again on their next adventure – this time to Arizona for 5 months for their Army National Guard job training.

This was no small feat because we had to find a day that none of them had to work and before The Grunter’s new classes started. Oh, and we still have that precious Scary Baby in elementary school. And we didn’t want to fight the weekend crowds because I hate crowds.

No problem, PhilBillPaul and Scary Baby were gracious enough to take a “day off” from their regularly scheduled life and we headed to Tube World on a day where Atlanta was preparing for a blizzard (2 inches of snow predicted)!

First though, about 10 hours were spent trying to locate Mr. Humpfreeze’s Lands’ End squall jacket. Never found.

Please do not ask how you lose a winter coat. My mom already did. It’s a very sensitive subject right now.

Next, two hours at Walmart buying 4 pairs of gloves because any winter items here are lost like socks in the dryer. And boots because my Lands’ End squall boots went missing too.

Fun! Fun! Fun!

The tubes go way faster than you might think.

Tube World is first class all the way with their moving carpet lift so you don’t have to WALK back up the hill!

I skipped a few rides up the moving carpet so I could snap some pictures as they came down.

My glasses were iced over so I took some pictures of other people’s kids. I’m not sure any of those pin dots are my family.

I think this is part of my family…

I think I know these people…

The $1.50 face mask was the best money spent for Scary Baby. Though she didn’t take kindly to the Tube World teen staff calling her “little man”.

Might be because she also had her brother’s old winter coat on. She did take the face mask off during one ride so they could see that she was a GIRL!

We drove home in semi-treacherous weather. Any snow is a blizzard to my kids. The roads were slick and turning to ice. Scary Baby got a snow day on Friday which was a bonus.

Here’s how much snow was on the deck when we arrived home.

A solid inch – look closely. Wizzy ran right out to eat some fresh snow.

Southern babies – it’s fun to see snow through their eyes.

What did Atlanta folk do with all our snow here last week? To those of you who live in a cold winter state…do you take advantage of playing in the snow?

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3 Responses to “Tubing in the Winter”

Our winters in MI were wonderful! The sand dunes of summer became the sledding hills of winter. We didn’t have moving carpet to take us back up, but the city did come through and give us three luxuries: they installed ropes to hold onto as you walked the winding pathway back up the hill, they flattened and watered the snow to make a (free) ice rink for skating, and they kept a bonfire going on weekends. I loved it because there were no rich people or poor folks on those hills. Everyone was just a big kid having a ball and it was as much fun on an old inner tube as it was a handcrafted toboggan. And it was all free, free, free!

While we do live in Illinois it’s interesting because we are so far south that we don’t usually get much snow. Ice we get, not so much snow. We did get about 3 inches last week and had a snow day but honestly it was too cold to go out in it for much time at all and it was very light and powdery so we couldn’t make snowmen with it either. Last winter we did get one decent sledding snow and my son took full advantage of that but since my daughter had just broken her arm a couple of weeks before she didn’t get to go. Therefore, she tells me that in fact she has never been sledding! So, we’re looking for the next snow to let her try that out- poor girl, 15 years old and has never gone sledding! Call Child and Family Services on me…

@julieann–My fondest winter memories are also in Michigan! It was there that we got a toboggan for Christmas and it was the first time I remember both my parents went sledding with us on a big hill behind our house. I miss those snow memories for my kids and that’s why we try to visit the snow with our kids.

@Peggy–The cold and ice without the snow is just not right. I’ve called Child & Family Services but you’re too far down on the list on the no sledding abuse infraction. Hope you all find some snow and get her out there!!

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