56 NEBRASKAland • NOVEMBER 2016
Day 1
O
ur first set of friends showed
up, followed by the next, and
then the third. The roads coming in
weren't perfect yet, but they were
improving. "What's the plan?"
Terry Mayfield, one of the dads,
asked upon his arrival.
"I have a trunk full of sleds
and snowboards," my wife Laura
answered, which was met by
simultaneous approval.
"But I want to see the snakes
first," said 11-year-old Gavin
Greene, one of the kids in our party.
Even when it's 20 degrees, Ponca
still offers the opportunity to see
snakes during their Critter Corner
seminar
in the Missouri National
Recreational River Resource and
Education Center. With Ponca's
Chris Chase leading it, our group
touched and adorned various animal
pelts and even held Big Mama, a
bullsnake.
When the seminar ended, we
loaded up our cars, crept carefully
to a sled hill located near the Turkey
Ridge Campground, and spent the
next 6 hours on one of the most
entertaining sled hills our group
had
ever been on. We watched each other,
from a three-year-old to a 50-year-
old, zoom down on our sleds and
tumble down on our snowboards
– and we had the entire hill to
ourselves. The snow-covered park
was a ghost town.
Near dark, we ventured back to
our mini-lodge, cooked dinner and
settled in for a night of college
football, cards and music. There was
no place any of us would rather be.
