Winter Solstice: Peace, solitude and stillness

This photo was taken in Northern Michigan during a trip with my Dad.

A few months prior, I had my first experience riding a snowmobile and by the end of that first day, I had already planned on buying one of my own. During that first ride, I picked out the colors, the engine size, and the style of my new ride and I couldn’t wait to get back home and start saving.

After a few more local rides around our home, we decided to take a trip that would take us further north into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It was a familiar place to us, we had been there many times before. In fact, just that past summer we visited that same area. Look at the difference only a few months makes!

So there we were, riding along, just myself, my dad, and our friend John. I was ahead of the two at that point, so after a short stretch I pulled off to wait for them to catch up. Oddly enough, I found myself waiting way longer than I should have, and I started to get worried. Suddenly I see John racing up to me, motioning for me to come back.

“Something happened with your Dad.”

As he pulled up next to me and began to turn back around, I could faintly hear him say, “you gotta come back, something happened with your Dad.” My heart sank. What could have happened?

My mind racing, I followed John in close pursuit back to my Dad’s position. As we got closer, I could see his snowmobile off into the trees with one of the front skids wrapped around a tree. My Dad was in the snow, on his back, struggling to breathe.

Thankfully a passerby immediately stopped and began to remove my Dad’s helmet and other protective gear. His own helmet had crushed his airway and was suffocating him. Without the assistance of the passerby, we may not have reached him in time.

Soon an ambulance arrived, but it was a terribly bumpy ride to the nearest road since we were in the middle of the woods! The medics wrapped him up well and we were on our way. The wonderful folks at the local hospital took good care of him and he was on his way back to the hotel later that day.

Needless to say, we left for home shortly after… but it wasn’t our last trip! We spent the rest of that winder riding around locally and meeting up with other friends and family along the way.

Next summer, we took the whole family back up to the crash site and revisited the scene. It was surreal but we were all happy to be standing there and spent the rest of the trip reflecting on how thankful we were that nothing worse happened.