Our family visited Lake Tahoe this weekend, so it seems like fitting timing to share a funny story about what happened the last time we were here. Actually there are two especially entertaining stories from that visit, both of which I plan to share, but for today I’ll stick to our snowmobiling snafu.

I should start by clarifying that my mom is not actually responsible for this incident — I’m afraid I’m the one to blame — but as she was an active participant as it unfolded, I’ve decided that this story makes the “(F)unlesson” cut.

Several years ago, my mom, my dad, Nikhil, my cousin Smita, and I came to Tahoe together. As with the trip that resulted in the helicopter rescue that I previously shared, Sanam was not able to come on this vacation; I can’t quite remember, but I think she may have been in college at the time. (I’m starting to think that Sanam being away is the common factor when our family ends up in crazy situations — maybe next time we ought to think twice before going on holiday without her…)

Tahoe was a beautiful winter wonderland at the time — snow was covering the trees and mountains and it was a gorgeous site. On our previous trips to Tahoe in the winter, we had gone snowmobiling, and Nikhil and I were keen to go again. Unlike previous times, when we had gone in an enclosed field where we were easily supervised by the snowmobile rental facility employees, we decided this time to try something new; we found a rental place that would allow us to drive our snowmobiles along a trail in the mountains, unsupervised.

My dad was wanting to read his book in the hotel, so we went without him. And although she had come along with us, Smita wasn’t especially keen on snowmobiling, so she decided to walk around in the snow during our hour-long rental.

As we got out of the car, Nikhil asked me if he should bring along his cellphone, and I told him not to, in case it got wet. So, he left it.

We rented two snowmobiles, with Nikhil driving one while my mom and I shared the other, with me driving. We started along the trail, which circled up a mountain and through the trees. It was such good fun, getting to zoom through the snow and bounce up and down as we rode over bumps. We continued along for a few miles and eventually got to a patch full of bumps, and as Nikhil was speeding ahead of us, I drove faster to catch up as well as to increase the thrill.

I guess I must have been driving a bit too fast though — eventually we hit a bump that was too much for the snowmobile to handle at that pace; the snowmobile toppled to the side, my mom was thrown off, and although I stayed on I rammed into the windshield. Thankfully, neither of us was hurt. The snowmobile, on the other hand, wouldn’t turn on again.

During this time, Nikhil had zipped ahead and was nowhere to be seen; a snowmobile motor is super loud, so he wouldn’t have heard our shouts, and as he was ahead of us he wouldn’t have seen that we had toppled. We figured that eventually he would figure out that we were no longer behind him, at which point he would turn around for us.

Thankfully, my mom had brought her cellphone, so we called the rental office and told the guy working there that we needed a hand. He said he would drive his snowmobile over to us to help us get going again, but it was going to take 20 minutes or so as we were well into the trail. As we waited for him, we wondered why Nikhil hadn’t yet come back to find us.

Eventually the rental guy reached us, and within a few minutes he got our snowmobile working again and warned us to continue with our drive carefully. We drove ahead, this time very cautiously, thinking it was rather thoughtless for Nikhil to have kept on riding without any regard to where we were.

After several minutes, we found him. He had hilariously managed to lodge his snowmobile into a snow bank; after having realized that we were no longer behind him, he had in fact tried to turn his snowmobile around to come find us. Unfortunately the trail wasn’t wide enough, so as he’d tried to make a U-turn, he instead got his snowmobile fantastically stuck in a giant mound of snow. And as I’d convinced him not to bring along his cellphone, he couldn’t get in touch with anyone to ask for help!

Yet again we had to call the rental guy from my mom’s phone, explaining to him that Nikhil was now stuck. And yet again he had to drive up the trail 20 plus minutes to get us moving again.

We finally headed back down the trail on our snowmobiles and reached the rental office, having long exceeded our hour-long rental and coming back to a very confused (and cold) Smita who had expected us back far earlier.

Oh, what a comedy of errors. Despite this being years ago, I still can’t help but laugh when I talk about how this adventure unfolded — a crazy adventure, but one that I love that I can share with my mom.