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Tubing |  |
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I just spent the morning tubing with my family. For those of you who are not into snowly activities, this mayhem takes place at our local ski resort, Mt. Bachelor. They have a seven-lane tubing park. After you fill out the liability waivers and recover consciousness, you go to the tubing park and select your tube. It’s a large device, colorful, with a leash, handles and no steering mechanism or brakes whatsoever. In large cheerful letters, it spells out, WARNING: USE OF THIS TUBING DEVICE COULD CAUSE SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH. What a fun, wholesome family activity this is going to be! It just beats the heck out of Scrabble, Yahtzee and Monopoly, now, doesn’t it? I stare at my babies and remember when they were born. That little nagging voice in the back of my head is chanting, “We’re all going to die. We’re all going to die.” You hand the leash to the attendant, whose vocabulary consists of the words, “awesome, cool and duuuuude,” and they hook the leash to the cable that pulls your tube up the mountain. You ride in the tube as it goes up. The only way to ride the tube is to place your rear end in the well of the tube with your four limbs sticking out in various directions. Dignity is not included. I asked if very large people were able to sit in the tubes. I was told that the large people just “kind of skim the top” of the tube and on the “Tubing With Santa Day,” there were a few close calls of the big guy getting stuck. Suffice it to say, it is not a sport for the faint of heart or the big of butt. Once you are at the top of the slope, the cable automatically disengages your tube and you drag it to one of the lanes and wait for the attendant there to say, “Cool.” You again assume the sophisticated position, previously described, in your tube and slide down the slope backwards. You do not intend to go backwards. You start out facing forwards but due to the lack of steering, brakes or common sense, you spin. You have no choice. You hope and pray there are no cameras recording your descent. Once you reach the bottom, you jump up, drag your tube over to the cable attendant, who tells you, ”Awesome ride, dude,” and do it again because at this point, your brain is frozen along with all extremities, including your hair. Whee. |
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