suzyness.com

A few weeks ago, Ben and I traveled up to his parents house in Oregon for a rather sad occasion – Ben’s grandmother’s memorial service. It was a beautiful service – Ben’s brother, Dave, put together a video slide show of their grandmother’s life – from baby pictures all the way through Thanksgiving. It was very touching.

This trip was one of my few times driving in snowy conditions. While the roads were dry, the agents at Hertz warned us of black ice on the roads. It made me a little worried, since I was the only driver on the rental, and adding Ben would have cost us an extra $10 a day. But I figured if I was cautious, we’d be fine.

While I played it safe driving, walking was a different story. Ben, his sister, nieces, brother and I ventured out to Silver Creek Falls on Saturday afternoon. I hadn’t packed for a snow excursion – the sneakers I brought along had little tread and canvas tops, making my adventure slippery, wet and cold. The first stop was great. We played in the snow, had a few snowball fights, and ran around like kids. I started feeling a little more confident – maybe the shoes weren’t as bad as I thought. We continued on to our next vista stop, grabbing a cup of hot cocoa to warm up, and absorbing the breathtaking scenery. Then, everything gets a little fuzzy. Or, more appropriately, they got a little slippery. As Ben & I strolled down path, we encountered a patch of ice. Ben slipped a bit, caught his balance, and warned me that it was slippery. A half second later, I hit the same patch and was down. Of course, my hands were safely stowed away in the pockets of my jacket, leaving the brunt of the blow to my poor little tail bone. It was definitely not a fun experience. I spent a few minutes on the ground – varying between pain and laughter – embarrassed for taking such a dramatic tumble, but in too much pain to get up.

The next week contained shuffling around, sleeping on my stomach and lots of advil. Two weeks later, I’m happy to say that I feel that I’m nearing full recovery.