The tumble down the side of the hill had mixed up all of the things I had tossed in the back of my Jeep, like some bizarre blender. So what Alex actually found on the roof liner of the Jeep (the new floor) was a large pile of equipment like my jumper cables, the jack, spare tire, and the paper contents of the last four visits to McDonald’s. He also found the large zipped duffle bag that I kindly called my survival bag. While banged up a bit, the kids also had their vacation suitcases full of god knows what, but definitely included clean folded spare clothes.
Alexi was the first to cry out that she had finally located our down filled jackets in the mess.
“Got them Mom! I’m getting our gloves and hats out of our pockets also.”
During the winter month’s people throw fashion to the wind and just focus on staying warm. The key is in what they call layering. Dressing in such a way that you can quickly put on or take off appropriate clothes for the temperature around us. While we all were currently dressed in jeans and flannel shirts, with appropriate cotton underwear underneath, we still had to wear our down filled jackets, fir lined leather gloves and wool ski toques just to run from the Jeep to the house.
Once we all were dressed again for the outside weather, we all stopped shivering from the cold. But based on how easily our breath was clearly seen, I knew it was well below freezing in this Jeep.
“You guys have any ideas?”
The kids were a bit surprised at my not so subtle hint for input. Asking for help was something I seldom did unless I needed their muscles for lifting around the farm. But my head was still pounding like someone was hitting me in the back with a small hammer. Honestly I could of used a couple Ibuprofen right then. The way I was feeling, I was only too willing to let them do all of the thinking right now.
“Ok Mom, we are obviously buried and based on the stale air, even with the storm raging above us, we still are going to need to dig out enough to allow air down to us. When the storm is over, we will also need to set an emergency flag on the highway so someone can find evidence that we are down here.”
Alexi nodded in agreement. “That sounds like a good plan Alex, I see that the key for us is to use the Jeep as a shelter until this storm is over.”
“What are you doing?” I asked as I saw Alex again move to the back hatch that was effectively pointing downward.
“I’m looking for something to dig us out of this snow.”
Alex rummaged around my survival bag for a few minutes, holding up and looking at each item. Alexi and Alex were making a list of our items and if needed immediately he would had the item to Alexi to hold, while tossing out things he didn’t need. My Jeep is usually a real mess, and since the accident it was the photo incarnate of the word “Chaos”.
“Hallelujah!” Alex cried out.
Alarmed, I cried out “What is it?”
Alex proudly held up a metal shovel with a head blade on it a little bigger than the width of my hand. The short handle folded at the center for a total extended length of about 18 inches.