Elizabeth Houg of the Siouxland SnoTrackers was named the Teen Snowmobiler of the Year at the 54th Annual SDSA Convention held in Sioux Falls, SD December 2nd.
Elizabeth is the daughter of Johnny & Kristin Houg of Garretson, SD.
She helps with her clubs trail and attends as many club rides as she can.
Congratulations Elizabeth! Below is her essay that she submitted: What snowmobiling means to me ….. by Elizabeth Houg
To me, snowmobiling means spending time with friends and family. Some of my earliest and favorite memories are riding snowmobile because that is what my family does for fun and vacations.
I started riding on the back with my Mom. My Mom never went very fast so I always preferred to ride with my Dad. He always did fun things with me. If it wasn’t for my Dad I would never have liked snowmobiling as much as I do now. And because of Dad, I learned how to ride my own sled and now I can do everything and go everywhere on sleds with the rest of my family.
Every year, our family takes at least one trip to Wisconsin or the Black Hills with our snowmobiles. Those trips are always a lot of fun because we are usually with friends too. We have our favorite places to stay and favorite trails to ride. But what I enjoy the most is when we get plenty of snow around home! Then I get to enjoy riding whenever I want with family and friends. I also enjoy the freedom of riding my own sled now too. One of my best friends lives a couple miles away and last year our parents were letting us ride the trails to and from each other’s houses.
And another fun thing when we have snow at home, our family hosts a snowmobile party in our shop. We can ride and pull tubes in the field across the road or we can just jump on the trails and go right from our shop! We always have lots of hot chocolate with whipped cream. But the best part of riding around home is not having to load the t railer and drive to find snow.
I really have a good time with the friends we have in our snowmobile club. We have these fun awards or nicknames that we give out to people. One of them is the rhubarb award. That means that person is always off the trail in the rhubarb somewhere getting stuck. One of our good friends is always in the rhubarb getting stuck and last year that rhubarb award went to our friend and neighbor, Rollie. One fun memory was Rollie getting stuck not even 2 minutes into a ride. No one else noticed but myself and his wife and we ended up pulling him out without any help from anyone else. And of course we never let him forget.
The hardest thing about snowmobiling and my least favorite thing, is putting in the trails and taking them out again. Since my family is really active in our snowmobiling club, I “get to” help put in the trails. I shouldn’t complain because we always seem to make that a fun time too. Plus I know it needs to be done if I want to ride. The long days and hard work of putting in trails is worth it. So when snow falls, you can find me on the trails riding snowmobile.
