One of my worst fears is getting into a wreck with my kids in the car.
It happened.
While we were in Colorado, a snow storm hit. Everything was completely covered in snow. Snow isn't bad to drive it, especially in Colorado. They use some kind of anti-freeze on the roads. We were on our way to go snowboarding, taking our time, being extra careful. We made it all the way down the mountain where we were staying and on to the highway - the far right lane because there is less stop and go. I don't even know what happened but we suddenly starting spinning circles. The car would not stop or slow down. We kept spinning and spinning until we had cleared 4 lanes on the highway! We missed every car on the road. Then...BANG! We took down one road sign. BANG BANG BANG! We went up over the side embankment of snow, ice, and rocks - almost flipping us. BANG! We hit a very large road sign, stopping us. I then quickly turned around to check on the kids. Both were crying, but neither were hurt. None of the airbags deployed, luckily. But, we had all of our equipment in the back... Ryan's snowboard helmet had shot up over the seat and hit Taylor on her chest. Our jack set, which had been locked in a compartment in the rear and weighed at least 15 pounds, had come out of the locked cubby and catapulted over the seat right towards Christian's head. It sat on the seat right next to him. We were stuck. The doors would not open.
Two other drivers stopped to talk to us. The told us that our car was buried in snow, which is why our doors would not open. They made sure we were okay and then left.
Ryan pushed the doors open as I called for help.
This is the damage:
The whole underside of the car had been ripped apart from the embankment we went over. The frame was pushed inward, so everything was off alignment.
The police lady was clearly having a REALLY bad day. She had Ryan fill out the report so she could sit in her car. Then she gave us a ticket for "failure to maintain control of the vehicle". No kidding! If we could control the vehicle, do you think we would be sitting on the side of the road in 4 feet of snow?! Plus, we have Texas tires. Not meant for snow. I argued with her for a long time, but she was not going to change her mind.
The tow truck came and realized that they could not tow us. Instead, they sent a flat bed trailer thing. We all rode in our broken car on top of this huge thing. We were up soooo high! It was the best part of the day.
We called our awesome friends and my brothers. They all met us at a local diner, where we waited. They rushed in and hugged us. I broke down at that point. It was great to just hug. Our friends were so encouraging and uplifting. They even offered to drive us all the way back home! It sure is great having such true friends. (We really couldn't ask them to do that for us, though.) They told us that is was such a good thing that we didn't drive up the mountain because the roads were awful and wrecking on the side of a mountain could definitely be really bad.
Ryan started working on our rental immediately, and ended up getting us a mini van. Woop woop! Haha! If I had to pick any rental car, this would definitely be it! That mini van had LED lights around the ceiling all limo-style, bucket seats in the middle, dual remote sliding doors, satellite radio, floor storage compartments... you name it, this thing had it. So, we drove that back home in style and complete comfort.
Our search for a new car started about 2 weeks after the wreck. One day we drove by a car lot and decided to "just look". We came home with this guy about an hour into our "just looking":
Christian thought he was really cool sitting in the seat like a big boy!
(We drove across the lot to Ryan's car so I could get the car seats)
There really were a lot of blessings in disguise in this situation. So many things could have been so much worse. In the end, things ended up better.
