In our first year of marriage, Gerard and I registered for a couples retreat at Beulah Beach, a church campgrounds just west of Vermilion on Lake Erie about an hour’s drive away.  The year before, we attended a singles retreat there which was pretty fun so we decided to go back as a married couple (this is before we had pets).  It was in February around Valentine’s Day.

We were looking forward to a fun weekend getaway and when we left, the roads were clear but didn’t stay that way for long.  Shortly after we started, some snowflakes began to fall and began sticking to the ground.  The Interstate got very slippery and before we knew it, we were in the middle of a huge blizzard and could barely see the lights of the car ahead of us.  We were creeping along at about 20 mph and Gerard kept telling me to go slow.  We couldn’t even see the side of the road and the lines for the lanes were all snow covered.  I felt I had to keep the headlights of the car ahead in sight or I wouldn’t know where the road was!  It was THAT bad! 

We were in white out conditions and I didn’t know what to do so just kept poking along and praying God would get us there safely.  I just kept poking along hoping other cars wouldn’t hit us.    When we spun out I thought “oh no, this it, God take the wheel.”  (I think there’s a song with that title.)  We skidded over to the ditch that separated us from the oncoming traffic from the other direction but stopped before going into the ditch.  It was a miracle no one hit us and we didn’t hit anyone else.  Fortunately, we were almost to our exit, about 15 minutes away, and although it was scary and slow going, we continued on and finally arrived safely.  We were so relieved to get there safely that all I remember about the retreat is that we had a very nice dinner sometime that weekend—I was so frazzled! 

Fortunately, our ride home was uneventful and the roads were all clear.  Whew!  What a trip!  That was the last time we went on any retreat.  Never again would I go in the winter. 

This is the prompt:  Your Worst Winter Weather Story as part of Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop..