I always wanted to start a story with that sentence but in this case, it was true.

My husband and I are in a yacht rock band and we were heading home after our gig. Because we have so much equipment, he loads all of it in his Suburban. I drive myself in my Subaru Crosstrek and our bass player follows in his Mercedes SUV, with our backup singer, and comes from a completely different direction.

We live in the Las Padres mountains so we checked the weather app all day to ensure it wouldn’t be snowing while setting up or tearing down. Forty percent snow was the prediction. Our dinner performance would end at 9PM, so it appeared that our time slot would be safe from the storm headed our way.

The restaurant was warm and beautifully decorated for Valentine’s couples. We started at 5PM and had a wonderful time playing the love songs that we had selected for the evening. It was nearing the end of our performance when we noticed that it had begun to snow.

The restaurant manager offered his storage room for our equipment so we could leave as soon as possible. By the time we left, it was 9:45PM and the snow was building up on the cars quickly. We took to the road, my husband leading, me next, and our bass player and backup singer in the third car.

We were slowly making our way to the main road. It was snowing heavily and windshield wipers were working double time to offer us a clear view. It was so cold, black ice was guaranteed to be covering the winding road. We couldn’t have been going more than ten miles per hour when my husband slowed almost to a stop. I thought maybe there was an animal on the road. Actually, he saw a car coming in the opposite direction and he was traveling way too fast for the conditions of the road. When he approached the curve we were on, his tires slid on the ice and he slammed into my husband causing him to slide back and hit the front of my car. Meanwhile, the driver who hit my husband was skidding even further, he clipped the back end of my car which put me into a spin. I felt my bumper graze our bass player’s car door and after several spins I finally came to a stop behind him. My airbag deployed. It took me a couple of minutes to collect my thoughts which is no easy task even on a good day. A chemical smell filled the car making it almost impossible to breathe. Thank God my window worked and I rolled it down to let some frigid air in. I discovered there was also an air bag that deployed beneath the steering column, hitting me in the shin. Very powerful and very painful. It took a few moments to comprehend what had happened.

What I really wanted to talk about is not the accident, which by the way totaled both of our cars, but the silver linings that I like to look for following any bad experience. If we had not been on the road at that very spot and at that very moment, the 22 year old driver that hit us would have gone over the embankment. Our cars acted as a guard rail. Yay. Also, I was an ice skater in my pre-adolescent years. The one spin I was never able to master was the sit spin. I’m happy to say I can cross that off my bucket list. I actually did an impressive sit spin, in my car mind you. Mom would be proud.