Snow Tubing with the Bears
This Saturday night, spacevlad and I went snow tubing with the Minneapolis Movie Bears (MMB). I haven't been snow tubing since I was probably 13 or 14 years old. It was a lot of fun - there were probably 80 guys and maybe 2 or 3 girls that went. It was at Green Acres, which is a tubing hill on the north side of Lake Elmo township (take Hwy 36 out and it's before you hit Stillwater).
There were two hills - a "family" hill and a steep hill. We lucked out with some fresh snow last week and mild temperatures (high 20's). I went down the family hill once and down the steep hill probably 8 or 9 times before calling it quits to warm up in the Chalet. The steep hill was pretty scary, I have to admit. I actually found it more intense to go down "normal" (with your backside in the tube) because without fail, halfway through, you turn around and go down the second half of the hill back first and you can't see where you are going. I found it better to go face first on my stomach - it was actually less scary that way believe it or not. The destination is the same - the very steep hill exits out onto a frozen pond and you skid across the entire pond as part of slowing down. Very thrilling. Even the tow-rope up to the top was fun. I'll definitely go back next year if they do the event again.
I highly recommend Green Acres for snow tubing. It's a lot of fun and the hills are well groomed. The Chalet itself was pretty lackluster - just some benches and it was more like a warm-up house at an outdoor rink than a proper chalet.
It would be cool if MISFITS/GPS did some sort of geek event with snow tubing.
MMB is one of two bear organizations in the Twin Cities, the other being the North Country Bears (NCB). I like how the Twin Cities can have two bear social clubs and they aren't (at least perceivably) in conflict with each other - rather their events complement each other and membership in both groups is, with few exceptions, overlapping. More of a “healthy competition” spirit. Plus it's nice to double-up on some events - for example there are two river tubing events in the summer - one at the beginning of summer and one at the tail end of summer - same place (Welch Village) and same river (Cannon River) and mostly the same folks going river tubing, but you get the chance to go twice instead of just once because NCB does one of the events and MMB does the other. It's also nice to have the option of two different bar nights a month - one in St. Paul and one in Minneapolis.
There were two hills - a "family" hill and a steep hill. We lucked out with some fresh snow last week and mild temperatures (high 20's). I went down the family hill once and down the steep hill probably 8 or 9 times before calling it quits to warm up in the Chalet. The steep hill was pretty scary, I have to admit. I actually found it more intense to go down "normal" (with your backside in the tube) because without fail, halfway through, you turn around and go down the second half of the hill back first and you can't see where you are going. I found it better to go face first on my stomach - it was actually less scary that way believe it or not. The destination is the same - the very steep hill exits out onto a frozen pond and you skid across the entire pond as part of slowing down. Very thrilling. Even the tow-rope up to the top was fun. I'll definitely go back next year if they do the event again.
I highly recommend Green Acres for snow tubing. It's a lot of fun and the hills are well groomed. The Chalet itself was pretty lackluster - just some benches and it was more like a warm-up house at an outdoor rink than a proper chalet.
It would be cool if MISFITS/GPS did some sort of geek event with snow tubing.
MMB is one of two bear organizations in the Twin Cities, the other being the North Country Bears (NCB). I like how the Twin Cities can have two bear social clubs and they aren't (at least perceivably) in conflict with each other - rather their events complement each other and membership in both groups is, with few exceptions, overlapping. More of a “healthy competition” spirit. Plus it's nice to double-up on some events - for example there are two river tubing events in the summer - one at the beginning of summer and one at the tail end of summer - same place (Welch Village) and same river (Cannon River) and mostly the same folks going river tubing, but you get the chance to go twice instead of just once because NCB does one of the events and MMB does the other. It's also nice to have the option of two different bar nights a month - one in St. Paul and one in Minneapolis.