the Tortoise and the Hare...

You know the classic story - the hare is really fast, but the tortoise ends up catching him in the end... well that was Ryan and I at Pigeon Creek last night.

We had heard about skate skiing before, and found out that there was a place near Holland that rented the equipment, so we decided to give it a try! We headed out to Pigeon Creek Park, arriving just as the sun was setting. We were very excited to give this new sport a try, and to see how Ryan would do on skis for the first time.

We got our skis, and walked out to the trail - realizing that we didn't even really know how to put the skis on. And the guy at the rental shop was not very reassuring at all, as his only piece of advice was, "just try to stay up, and not fall down a lot, it is really hard". Oh great. :) We got the skis figured out, and quickly realized that the rental shop guy was right. I do believe that I fell as soon as I stood up. And I was practically in tears watching Ryan try to figure out how to manage on these really skinny, shorter than normal, skis. :) I don't think that we have ever laughed so hard.

We finally got it somewhat figured out, and were off on the trails. The trails were in excellent condition, really well groomed, and the snow continued to fall while we were there! It was really neat to do it at night, and we both decided that the night skiing was a really cool time to be out there. Ryan ended up being the Hare - he was faster than me, but would fall enough times that I would always catch up. It cracked me up. And I was definitely more like the Tortoise - slower, but also a bit steadier, although I had my fair share of falls.







So did we ever figure out exactly how to skate ski? Not really. Did we get really wet from continuously falling in the snow? Yep. Was it fun? Without a doubt. Would we do it again? Absolutely!! :)

Here are a few pictures from our little adventure!