Andrew+Bethany= :) the Life of the A&B Brown Family: Sledging.......yikes.......

It has been awhile since the last update! We have to be more consistent!!!!!! (One more New Year's Resolution.....not goin so well.....)

Andy and I had a great Saturday! We woke up, the sky was clear, it was actually kind of warm, and we didn't want to waste a great day. We got all of our snow clothes together and headed to the train station, on route to San Cergue!

on our way!

San Cergue is this beautiful resort town up in the Jura--a beautiful mountain range spanning over Switzerland and France. It is breathtakingly beautiful, and is just out our backdoor. We took a train to Nyon, just about 15 minutes away, and then got on a little red train (the track and train dates back to 1916!) It was such a beautiful ride up into the mountains. We get so used to the city (which is gorgeous as well) that we forget we are surrounded by some of the most gorgeous scenery in the world. And we decided we wanted to sled in it!

cute little red train!

right off the train in St. Cergue!

Bassa Rouche

We got to St. Cergue and headed to the TI Hut. We asked a nice lady where to go to sled and she directed us up this road that wove through some forests. After walking about 20 minutes, we got to this smaller resort called Bassa Rouche. We saw people skiing, tobogganing, and sledging. We went to the booth where you can rent sledges, in in our broken French, tried to tell the employee we wanted to go Sledging. He led us to the back where he handed us these huge, heavy sledges! Living in Switzerland, we are realizing that there are many different kinds of sleds. But we have never seen sleds quite like these! The seat of the sled was elevated above the runners about 10 inches, and the runners were made from slick steel. Oh, and no brakes and nothing to really hold onto. We pulled our sledges up a hill and tried to position ourselves on our sledges. We were watching other kids try to go down the hill, and turfing it pretty bad. "Crap," we were thinking,"we are adults and probably won't do half as well as these kiddies." Andy got on first. He decided to try to sit on it and go down, and he actually did pretty well. The challenge is staying on these puppies. He got to the bottom and just waited for me.

I got on my sled and thought to myself, "I am such an idiot." It is crazy what your body remembers from past experiences. It has been 7 years since my crazy sledding accident and I should be over this, but I. Was. Terrified. I got on my sledge, and started to go down. My legs spread onto the snow to try to slow my sled down--these metal runners make these fly! Then I bailed about half way down. Why did I think this would be fun?

We both just sat at the bottom of the hill and saw this kid come down on what looked like a body tube sled. He looked like he was having a lot more fun, plus, the hill he was sledding on had a cable that could pull you up the hill! Bonus!

We decided to trade in our sledges for what ever that kid was sledding down on. Apparently, they are called airboards. We cabled up (so much better than chompin up the hill!) and were pulled all the way up!

much happier with our Airboards!

oh hey!

The sledding runs

We both went down over and over again until our time limit was up. Much better! Still kind of terrified of sledding, but we had a good time up at beautiful St. Cergue!