12 | Snowmobile VERMONT By Kim Davis My parents, Karin and Bob Thody, purchased their first snowmobiles in 1987. They were both 32 years old and had been married for 10 years. The sleds were an ‘80 and an ‘81 Ski-doo Blizzard. At that time, my brother and I were two and a half and four and a half. The machines were quite a “deal” from an acquaintance and included a trailer, although they could be considered fixer uppers as they needed a lot of maintenance and work done on them very frequently. Karin had no idea what a snowmobile was until they showed up in the driveway on a trailer. Little did she know at the time how much those two snowmobiles would shape our family’s winter traditions. In the beginning, they snowmobiled only in Old Forge, N.Y. with friends or in Twin Mountain, N.H. The first couple of years, they would leave us with our grandparents when they went riding away from home. We also rode on some open town owned property in our hometown of Durham, Conn. or around our one- acre yard. As kids, we got bored quickly with only riding round and around the same field. A little later, my parents purchased a used 1984 Arctic Cat Kitty Cat. We both enjoyed riding that around the yard. I have heard stories though, that I actually enjoyed it more than my older brother. Eventually, my parents took us with them up to Old Forge and then we ventured to include long weekends or week-long vacation riding in Vermont, mostly in Central Vermont and the Northeast Kingdom. As a kid, I would ride in front of my mom, Karin. During those years, we had some interesting (or you might say scary) moments riding tandem on machines equipped with nothing more than a leather belt and my hands holding onto the handlebars. It sure made things interesting considering I fell asleep on most rides and sometimes had a knack for hitting the kill switch with my elbow in the middle of an icy hill. Eventually, my brother and I got too big for riding in front, and we were switched to the back of the sled. My true love for snowmobiling came when my Kim Davis, Kelsie Davis (age 3) and Karin Thody keep the tradition alive in their family. 3Generations of Snowmobiling Ladies