subject: Nothing Says Winter Like A Sleigh Ride [print this page] Winter conjures up all kinds of imagesWinter conjures up all kinds of images. The holiday season, with all of the lights and decorations. The coming of a new year, with all of its appended hopes and expectations, and finally, Valentines Day, with new or renewed pledges of love and affection. In Breckenridge, all of these holidays and the entire winter season have one thing in common: snow.
When I was a child, growing up in the Rockies, we used to pray for snow in the hopes that our school would be canceled and we could have a "snow day." One year, I think we must have prayed too hard, because the whole town was snowed in for a week, and we couldn't leave the house. There were times when we used up so many snow days that we had to make them up by going to school on Saturday. That was no fun for us, but I think our parents kind of liked having a day off without the kids around. But the best part of snow, especially the thick, heavy snow that would usually fall in the mountains, were the sleigh rides.
We had all kinds of sleighs. The farmer sleigh was usually the detached hood of an old car, hitched to the back of a tractor. It seems crazy now, and I don't think I would let my own children ride one, but you can have a lot of fun, spinning around a snowed over field behind a tractor on the hood of a car. Of course, we had our sleds, which were either the wooden ones with blades, or the more popular ones, made of plastic. None of these could compare, however, to a good old fashioned horse-drawn sleigh ride.
Personally, I think the horse-drawn rides are better at night. In Breckenridge, the lights from the decorations reflect off of the ice crystals on the streets and in windows, giving everything an otherworldly appearance. In the country, the light of the moon reflecting off of the snow pack blends with the stars, and the crisp, fresh air to create something that is truly special. The sights, the sounds of the horse hooves as they dash through the snow; it's no wonder they've written songs about it!
All in all, there really is nothing better in the winter in Breckenridge than a horse-drawn sleigh ride, together with friends, family, or that special someone to create a memory that will last a lifetime.
