Customize My Sled -- The Green Way

The kids had a few days off school last weekend and they decided that they wanted to go sledding at Grandpa's house.  Remember those plastic sleds that you would use for sledding when you were younger?  Well, unfortunately I didn't remember ours.  We have several of them in the garage being used as triplines; and I was supposed to put a couple in the car when we were leaving.  But 15 minutes into our drive, my youngest son asked where the sleds were.  Of course, it was at that exact moment that I realized, I forgot to grab them.  So I had a decision to make: 

1. Go back and get the sleds -- this would waste 30 minutes of drive time, burn an extra gallon of gas, and release unecessary emissions into the environment
2. Stop at a store and buy a new sled -- this would take time, would waste money, and I'd be buying more processed plastic which is not good for the environment
3. Make our own custom sleds -- this would be free any additional time required would be spent with Grandpa

I weighed my options and decided that we should make our own sleds.  When we got to Grandpa's house, we went to the garage to something that we could repurpose into a sled.  We saw some large cardboard boxes that were taken apart and waiting to go out with the recycling the next day.  We cut them into rectangles approximately 2-3 feet wide and 4 feet long. 

When we reached the sledding hill, the kids jumped right on and headed down.  They seemed to go about the same speed and distance as the other kids with plastic sleds and innertubes.  It looked like so much fun that I decided to try one.  My cardboard sled sank down in the snow a bit more than theirs had and I didn't go more than a few feet.  The snow was too deep and I was just plowing my way through.  I tried curling up the front of the cardboard and then it worked much better.  I was able to go almost as far as the younger kids when I did it that way! 

Best of all, when we were done sledding, we were able to recycle our cardboard sleds and not have to find a place to store them.  The only downfall to this version is that it probably couldn't be used on more than one or two sledding excursions.