Snow Tubing at Oakhurst

Most people reading this blog know that I am from the South. In the South we don't have much snow that we have to deal with in our lives, even during the winter months.

One of the things we were looking forward to when moving to IL, was that we would have more snow, because when you live in the South most of your life and don't have it regularly, you want to experience it more.

So far this year we have had a good deal of snow, but until last Monday, we didn't have any good accumulation sitting on the ground that would be good for our Sr. High Snow Day that I had planned for this past Saturday. But, alas, God provided us with a good deal of snow through the week, and we were able to go through with our Snow Day activity and go sledding and tubing at Oakhurst.

This was the first snow trip that I have taken our group on since I have been here, and in fact I have only been sledding or tubing a few times in my life. In addition to the first snow trip we have been on, this was also the first trip that we used the church bus to transport our youth.

After dressing warmly and packing all of our gear and people onto the bus, we headed off for Oakhurst. Oakhurst is a hill at a Forest Preserve. There are no lifts or anything like that. It is just a public hill that people go sledding on. There is no fee, no personel on hand to make sure you don't do stupid things, just a hill with snow and lots of people wanting to sled. I had been told that this hill was big, but I had never seen it. So when we drove up to it, I realized that this was a pretty nice sledding hill and should be a fun day of excitement.

What I didn't realize was how tired I was going to be just walking to the top of this hill. Then after you sled down, you have to walk back up again. It wasn't very long, actually probably about 30 minutes after we got there that someone (I won't mention any names) asked me when we were going to leave and go eat dinner. However, we endured. Actually, the day was perfect. The week before, we had seen literally sub zero temps during the day (not just wind chill - actual temps). Saturday though was around 30 degrees. It was a bit windy at the top of the hill, but not too much to bear.

Jess walking back up the hill after tubing down

Our group at the top of the hill on the rock

Jakob and Andrew racing down the hill

Jess and Kathleen making snow angels at the bottom

After multiple trips up and down the hill (and some other trips down the side of the hill by certain dare devils), we were exhausted. So we headed down to the bottom for a game of snow football (for some). That game didn't last too long as we were all pretty tired.

So when you are tired, hungry, and cold the best thing to do is eat....ice cream. We went to Culvers for dinner. Not too many people actually had Culvers frozen custard, but a few did and even when it is cold outside, Culvers custard is still good to eat....when you are warm and inside.

After Culvers we headed back to church to unload, have a devotion, and head home. All in all I would say it was a pretty good trip and one we may repeat in the years to come. And the bus did great...and the bus driver not too bad (except for one major oversight which I won't list here...actually 2 come to think of it).

Until next time...