Instagram vs Reality: Family Vacation Edition

How did you spend your Christmas Eve? Did you attend church with your family, celebrate with friends, or snuggle up and watch a Christmas movie at home? That sounds relaxing and picture perfect, but I have a bit more adventurous Christmas Eve story to share with you.

My family and I were snowmobiling in the Porcupine Mountain area in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It was a nice, quiet day of riding with great snow and temperatures in the high 20’s. There were hardly any other snowmobilers out on the trail, most likely due to the Christmas holiday. Note here that this also means that many of the small towns are completely shut down, only to re-open on Dec. 26.  We rode through many beautiful areas and stopped at a scenic overlook called Lake of the Clouds where we took lots of great photos. Like every other person with Instagram in 2019, I thought to myself, “When we get back to the cabin I should post these on my Insta story to share all of the cool places we saw today.” 

We were on our trek back to our cabin and on the hunt for fuel. It was nearly 5 p.m. and we hadn’t run across any towns with gas stations throughout the day. Luckily, we left in the morning with full tanks and our two emergency tanks were also full. There were several towns we knew we could hit on the way home, so our half-full tanks weren’t worrying us too much just yet. 

We ride for awhile before hitting the first town on the way home...the place we were planning on getting fuel. We drove up and the WHOLE PLACE was dark. A sign on the door indicated they closed at 4 p.m. Anyone from Iowa would think, “Thank goodness for pay-at-the-pump, eh?” WRONG. Apparently, Michigan has NO pay-at-the-pump when the store is not open. ABSOLUTELY NONE.

Everyone in our family sprung into action to try to come up with a plan to get all four snowmobiles home. I saw a janitor cleaning inside the convenience store so I went up to the door and tried getting his attention. I just wanted to know if he knew of any other gas stations that would be open. When he noticed me, he immediately started shaking his head and pointed at the sign on the door that said closed. I wouldn’t leave, but he continued vacuuming and ignored me. What kind of Christmas spirit is that?! I gave up and then started helping my mom call all of the gas stations and bars on our map to see if there was anything open on Christmas Eve. This is when we learned that Michigan doesn’t offer pay-at-the-pump after convenience stores close. Again, WHO KNEW?!?! I’ve never been so thankful for our Iowa Casey’s stores in my entire life. 

We came to the realization that we were going to have to get back to the cabin on the fuel we had on board. We computed how many miles we had left to go and how far we thought the fuel would take us. We decided to see how much further we could get before having to use the few gallons of emergency fuel strapped to mom and dad’s sleds. We got quite a ways before we started getting low-fuel warnings. We parked on the trail and started strategizing about how to utilize what we had. It was so dark outside, and the fact that we were in the pitch black woods with no cell phone reception on Christmas Eve was scary. Although we were never lost, Megan and I like to say that the song ‘Lost in the Woods’ from Frozen 2 was the theme song of the evening. 

At this point we figured our best bet was putting the emergency fuel in two of the four sleds, riding all four until the two died, and then riding double the rest of the way. We again headed back towards the cabin, and every mile seemed to drag by. The miles I ran during my marathon last summer seemed to go by quicker than they did on this cold, dark, Christmas Eve night. We surprisingly rode for quite a while until we finally came up on a small town and by this time my snowmobile had been on empty for over 10 miles, warning me with a red blinking light on the dashboard. We decided this little spot in the clearing of the woods was a prayer answered and would make retrieving the snowmobiles with the trailer so much easier. So we ditched the two almost-empty sleds and hopped on with mom and dad. We had just over 20 miles back to the cabin at this point, and I think we all felt a sense of relief. I clung onto my dad tightly as we both tried to fit on the tiny seat. My sister and mom followed us closely on the other snowmobile. We were sure hoping our mileage calculations were correct and we’d have enough fuel in the two remaining machines to get to the cabin. By this time it was snowing, but the temps were still in the high 20’s, so at least no one was cold.

We finally made it back to the cabin with just enough fuel, and headed back to the abandoned sleds with the truck and trailer. It was after 11 p.m. when we were all finally safely back in the cabin. The next day we woke up to freezing rain and decided not to ride. I think Megan and I were both a little relieved not to ride, as getting fuel might have been a problem on Christmas Day. Instead we enjoyed Christmas dinner at a local cafe complete with homemade pie. 

Remember back to when I mentioned all of those beautiful pictures I’d taken throughout the day? If I posted them on Instagram after all of the exciting happenings it just wouldn’t be a truthful sharing of the days happenings. I always laugh at the “Instagram vs Reality” posts you see on social media sites. Behind every good photo, parents are bribing their kids and family members are yelling at one another. In a way, that’s kind of how our Christmas Eve seemed to go. All of the beautiful scenery and great trails during the day turned into an evening filled with rationing gas in the dark woods lit by one flashlight and the fear that we’d have the sleep in the woods and possibly get eaten by wolves. Okay, maybe that last one is a bit of a stretch, but I was sure wondering what we were going to do there for awhile. Although that evening was a bit tense, it sure made for a memorable trip that we can’t help but laugh about now.