It was quite an adventure on my recent Holiday trip to Michigan. I flew up for my niece’s wedding and to spend the holidays with my Dad and siblings. We had heard the weather reports predicting an Ice Storm later in the evening of the wedding, so my Dad, cousin and I decided to ride to the wedding with my sister and her husband (they live in the Upper Peninsula and are used to driving in bad weather) and we thought we would be safer. On the way to the wedding (which was about an hour away), we were in a car accident when someone pulled out into the highway and hit us. We were very fortunate that no one was hurt, a few inches further back and it would have been a different story – the car however didn’t fare so well.

My sister’s son, grandson and daughter were in different cars a little further behind us on their way to the wedding also and saw us on the side of the road from the accident and stopped to help. Everyone got into different cars and we all made it to the wedding in time – a little stressed, but we were there. I do admit that once we got to the reception, I did have a couple Margaritas.

On the way home from the wedding reception, we caught a ride with another sister and her husband. We were heading into the Ice Storm and the further North we went the worse it got – you could hear the ice crunching as we drove and there were more cars were in the ditch. We decided it was best to spend the night at my sister’s house since the roads were so treacherous and it was another 10 miles or so to my Dad’s farm. That was a real good decision, since the power went out through the night also. We then had the help we needed in getting the generator hooked up properly, once we were able to get to the farm.

While it was beautiful to see all the ice on the trees, the limbs were breaking from the weight of the ice. You could hear them snapping and crashing to the ground, hitting houses, cars and anything in the way.

Lessons from the Ice Storm –

* Stay calm – don’t stress out over it, you can’t change Mother Nature

* Go with the flow – be flexible, you need to respond to the situation at hand and plans do get changed

* Be thankful for everything (the family and especially the generator) – there are so many others that had it much worse

* Be an example – have courage and be the rock – see life as the adventure it is

We were without power for 4 days, it finally came on Christmas evening. For some areas it took even longer since there was so much damage. This one will be recorded as one of my most memorable Holidays for sure.