💥 BAM!

On Sunday afternoon, my husband and I set out to get a few groceries. It was such a beautiful blue-sky sunny day, cold (14°), we took “the road less traveled” through wooded areas surrounding a nearby lake. We didn’t notice a rather steep, curving incline when we climbed it during our sightseeing drive.

After taking in the picturesque scenes — a late mid-January Maine afternoon with a setting sun that lit the landscape in a snowy gold, highlighting white-barked birches, wintergreen firs and spruce, and ice fishers on the frozen lake, we retraced our route back, traveling on plowed snow roads that had been sanded for safer travel. However, we soon realized that the hill we had driven earlier was now in shadow from a setting sun and glazed with hard ice. No sand. Just ice.

Me: “Looks like the road ahead is ice-covered snow.”

Agreeing, husband anticipated what was ahead, tapped the brakes to slow us from the 20 mph at which we had been traveling on level ground.

Me: Becoming apprehensive. In moments, we are sliding downhill on the approach to a tight S-curve.

Husband: Focused on trying to gain control of our car that was quickly gaining momentum and was unresponsive to steering.

Now we both knew what was coming. We were headed straight into a snowbank, a ditch and those very lovely scenic trees.

OH!!!

💥 💥💥

BAM!

Here’s where we ended up…

Yes, that’s our little Honda CRV, kissing a tree, driver’s side windshield and body taking the brunt of the impact, smashing the windshield and exploding the front and backseat airbags.

Luckily neither of us was hurt. We clambered out of the car and onto a hip-deep snowbank to get away from the car (I was fearful of fire) and assessed the damage.

After calling a family member to rescue us, the kindness of a couple passing by on their way home after fishing for that night’s dinner, invited us to stay warm inside their vehicle until help arrived. We gratefully accepted.

I fear our car will be “totaled” and that will be the end of the cutest car I’ve driven. sigh…

BUT! I’m so thankful neither of us was hurt at all.

Below – Video taken the morning after when the wrecker and tow trucks pulled the Honda out. My husband and I retraced the route, this time in his supersized pickup with winged plow. Now you can see what we saw the day before when it was sunny and bright.