Journal 1

August 31, 2009

Compared to me, my step dad Rob has always been a bit more... shall we say macho? I mean, I enjoy body surfing and a good workout, but he is a very large and tall man, and tends to lean more towards extreme sports. Since he lives in Montana, half the year this means extreme winter sports. This last Christmas, when I went to visit my Mom, I got to experience first-hand what it means to be a macho Montanan.

It was Christmas day, and the presents were all opened. My mom had got me a very warm nice hat, which I was grateful for, as Iowa winters tend toward the harsh side of things. As the post-present lull came on, Rob began to get restless. His red, long, sparsely-haired head bobbed dangerously at me as he rose from the chair with a roaring yawn. Then he turned towards me, and his eyebrows shot up, his gaze intense and challenging.

“So, you wanna take the snowmobile out?”

Now when I was eight, it was well-known not to let me have the controls of a motorboat, because I liked speed, and had a tendency to cross wake-lines. So, there is a part of me that liked the idea, and since nothing else was going on, I said, “Sure.”

When I simply went to put a coat on, and my new hat, Rob laughed. “You've never been snowmobiling. You're gonna need more than that.” So I went and put on long underwear, fleeces, multiple pairs of socks... it went on and on. I felt like a toddler again, being suited up what felt to be an unnecessarily large amount. After donning the helmet, my image in the mirror was akin to some sort of cosmonaut, or the Michelin man in black.

We hooked the snowmobiles up to the trailer hitch, and drove off through the fresh snow, Christmas songs on the radio keeping the awkward silence at bay. Finally, we turned a corner and found the path up the mountain, a narrow hillside covered with trees, a white opening between them. We unhitched the snowmobiles. I was ready to find out what it was like to be a macho Montanan.

The snowmobile was loud – very loud. And it was already very, very cold up there on the mountainside, despite my layers. I couldn't find a comfortable position, and was forced to cling to Rob's back for dear life as the snowmobile rocketed forward into the whiteness – I nearly fell off in that first moment.

The speed was incredible – not because I had never gone that fast, but because of the snow shower, and the icy wind whistling past our heads – we were not enclosed like in a car – and because of the drop of hundreds of feet right beside us as we clung to the mountainside.

The scariest part was the other drivers we nearly collided with head-on at every turn. Apparently, they had had enough. Five minutes in, so had I. I was so uncomfortable clinging to Rob (my feet were the worst, at an awkward angle Nature never intended) that I told him I wanted to stop.

We both got off, and Rob, seeming to guess what the problem was, told me that I could drive it – by myself – if I wanted. Was this some sort of joke? Peering over the edge of the cliff side, I realized that it was not as steep as I thought. And there was that slightly macho part of me that didn't want to back down; to live life to its fullest. And it was Christmas, so why not see this as a present?

So, in no time it all, I found myself at the controls of a very fast snowmobile on a very narrow mountain path in Montana. After showing me how to steer, Rob told me to turn around and come back as soon as I could. I told him I would, and pressed the accelerator.

Again, I was nearly thrown off due to the force as the machine beneath me bucked like a wild horse. But I soon tamed it, and found my way around the first turn. It was pretty easy at first; just like driving. But then, in a matter of seconds, I found myself face to face with a party of snowmobilers surging the opposite direction. I defensively turned and nearly rammed the rock wall as they zoomed past, one after the other turning their heads to watch me plow into a snow drift.

Safely out of Rob's eyesight, I struggled to get the snowmobile moving again – it was stuck. I got off and physically dragged the back end out of the snow drift. Okay, let's try this again. After managing to get the thing moving, the next turn led to an empty, wide path between ancient pine trees, stretching into the distance as far as I could see.

I accelerated now, surging with such speed that it made my stomach churn. My goggles began to fog up, and I was forced to remove them, but now the wind and ice was stinging my face at 70 miles an hour, blistering the skin in seconds. Still, the thrill of the engine, the speed, the danger, these all combined into a serendipitous experience. Involuntarily, I stood up and leaned over the edge of the snowmobile, shouting, terrified and exhilarated all at once. I was flying; I was moving over white and through white and being lifted from below by a roaring insect.

I ended up leaving Rob there to wait for me for an hour; I just didn't want to go back to being a passenger. I finally found a place where I felt confident enough to turn around, and returned to find him worried and annoyed. What I didn't tell him was that I didn't want to try turning around in a narrow spot, and ending up getting plowed into by a team of other snowmobilers.

I wish it ended there, but it didn't. For the next three hours, I remained an uncomfortable prisoner, trapped behind my step dad as he enjoyed the thrill of driving up and down the snowy slopes. But I hung in there, literally. Finally, we came back to the truck and hitched everything back up. It was a hard experience, but at the end, I finally found out what it was to be a macho Montanan.