We spent this weekend at this lovely cabin in the woods, courtesy of our friends Stoney and Emilee. We had a great time relaxing, playing games, eating good food, and riding four wheelers.
Doesn't Addy look thrilled?
Until...(Duh, Duh, Duh...scary music)....
On Saturday, we decided to take a drive further up the mountain to a lake about an hour away. There were three families and we all piled into two cars. Our family was in our Xterra, with Brandon at the wheel. The weather was fine when we headed out. The drive up the mountain was beautiful, but was on a very windy, curving road with sheer cliffs on either side (about a 1500 foot drop off). About 30 minutes in, we came to a small tree that had fallen and was blocking the road. It was easy enough to drive over. It also started to snow slightly with just a few flurries coming down. As we continued along, we came to another tree blocking our path, big enough that we couldn't drive over it. One of the guys, Stoney, was able to remove it using his truck and a tow strap. I started to get worried about the snow as it was quickly coming down faster and heavier. I told the rest of the group that I felt we should turn around so we did not get stuck driving down this dangerous mountain road in a snowstorm. Of course, the guys all disagreed. I was met with "We'll be fine," "Don't worry," and "Just let us handle it."
We kept driving as the snow became worse and worse. At this point I was sick to my stomach and was literally begging Brandon to turn around, to no avail. The other women in the group agreed with me, but the husbands were not to be pursuaded. To them, it was just a chance to use their four wheel drive vehicles and show their masculine bravado. We finally came to a third tree blocking the road, a huge one with a trunk 5 feet around that would have been impossible to move. At last, the guys agreed that this must be a sign from God to turn around and we all had a good laugh.
Before turning around, we all got out of our cars and let the kids play in the snow for a bit. It was Addyson's first time in the snow and she was so puzzled and intrigued by it. It was so cute to watch her.
I was amazed that no one else seemed to be worried about the drive back down the mountain. We loaded back in and both cars got stuck in deep snow drifts trying to turn around. It took the men 90 minutes to dig themselves out of the snow. The whole time I was sitting in the car, panicked and almost hysterical. The snow was still coming and it was getting dark out. Luckily, I had some Christmas music to play and that helped me calm down. As we started to head back, everyone else suddenly realized the gravity of the situation we were in. We decided to have a prayer for safety. I felt some peace but was still very, very anxious.
Let me just say that the next two hours were the scariest of my entire life. The road had iced over and was covered with 6 inches of snow on top. There was no shoulder almost the entire time, just sheer cliffs with no room for error. Several times we slid and stopped just at the edge of the road. We were going about 5 miles per hour the whole time. I kept imagining the worst and was seeing newspaper headlines in my head:
"3 Families Die Because of Masculine Egos"
"SUV's Roll Off 1500 Foot Cliff: No Survivors"
"Cabin Weekend Turns Deadly"
You get the idea. I was near tears the entire time. We tried to distract ourselves with music and conversation but it was so tense you could have cut the air with a knife. I was fuming that the men didn't listen to me in the first place and that they put their families in danger. Don't they know women are always right? Luckily, Brandon is a good driver and we FINALLY made it safely down the mountain. I wanted to kiss the ground. We all breathed a sigh of relief that we were no longer clinging precariously to the edge of death.
When we got back to the cabin, we said a prayer of thanks for our safety. It's a good thing Heavenly Father still watches out for us when his SONS make stupid decisions.
