Maybe I Should Explain the Noses Pictures . . .

It was icey out and me and the forum friends from Dillon and a bunch of my email buddies were sharing our favorite sledding/cabin fever/winter stories. Here's mine:

We used to hook up anything with a smooth bottom to the back of my dad's hunting truck (small town girl here) and everyone would hop in the back of the truck and we'd take turns riding on the smooth bottomed object on the dirt snow covered roads (small town girl, not much to do). Well, it was my turn. My dad happened to pass a house that had some loose dogs out front, you know the kind that like to chase cars? My dad would slow the truck down just until the dogs were almost on me and then he'd take off with the dogs chasing me. He'd slow down again, wait for the dogs to catch up, the whole time I'm screaming almost in tears, just when they almost catch me, he takes off again. My family and friends were laughing histerically in the back of the truck and I could see my dad laughing so hard out of his side view mirror. I was about 14 years old. I lived to tell this story, I don't consider myself abused, I'm fine - HA!

Now, here's Lyndal's:

Ok, I'll go... In the neighborhood where I grew up there was a street on a really big hill. The kind of hill where you could pick up a scary amount of speed on your bicycle. When it snowed this was the first hill we would hit with our sleds. We had the kind of sleds with wooden planks, actual metal rails that made contact with the snow, and even a wooden "T" handle that would steer the sled a little bit. I remember putting ski wax on the rails to help reduce friction. Less friction... more speed... thrilled 12 year old. The sled also had a rope that looped-around and attached to each end of the front "T" handle. This was helpful to pull the sled behind you back up the hill over and over. One year we had a particularly good snow that was around all week. We got to spend a lot of time at home and drive my mother crazy. We also did a lot of good sledding. Around the 2nd day the snow would get really packed on the big hill from all the cars and with the additional wax on our sled rails, we could get some serious speed going down that hill. I had a great technique of launching down the hill that was the envy of all the kids in the neighborhood (for a while). I would run as fast as I could in my snow boots while holding the sled upright in front of my chest and then dive forward, landing on the sled and the ground simultaneously, rocketing down the hill at break-neck speed. The last time I tried this technique, everyone was watching. I was charging to the crest of the hill, adrenaline pumping, boots thumping, heart pounding... at the precise moment my body began to lung forward and I was pushing off with my strong foot (right), my sled abruptly halted while I sailed past the sled with my arms pulled down by the sled handles, soaring like a ski jumper with no skis. I had stepped on the rope dragging behind the sled. Yes, I careened to the snowpacked street face-first with the force of a freight train. My bell was rung. The strange part is I fully expected my nose to be flattened and bloodied and my front teeth to be loose. However, I only had one very deep scrape between my top lip and my nose. Not my nose or my lips, but the skin right below my nose. It was not a little scrape either! To this day I can't figure out how I scraped this area which is fairly protected by my... ahem... "prominent" nose. Come to think of it.. I've never scraped my nose on anything! Maybe kindof like shark cartilage, scientists could study my McMurphy Nose and it's imperviousness to injury. Just a thought.

So, after that story was posted to the Dillon forums a few people requested to see the nose in question. I HAD to indulge them and posted them here. Lyndal knew about it and took it all very well. So, please don't think I'm a horrible person, it was all done in great fun!