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The weather isn't bad for February in Chicago, at least around the south end of Lake Michigan, so the beginning of Jake's trip is smooth sailing. He speculates that this is a late winter thaw, although spring was a month or so away. It isn't long in Jake's journey before he begins to understand the weather on the east side of Lake Michigan. The lake effect snows are conditions to be cautious of on the highways he's traveling but as he takes the exit to the cabin area, things get much worse. Whiteout conditions make driving the rural roads an experience Jake doesn't need as his miraculous nonexistent hangover begins to manifest itself. He could handle the oncoming hangover, but road conditions continued to get worse the closer he got to the family cabin. Somehow, despite the weather and his hangover, he finds himself on the unimproved road that is the long and winding driveway to the cabin. He makes it about halfway up the road, just past the gate to the property, before his car drops down into a dip in the road that's capped by a deep snow drift. He's stuck and it was no use trying to dig out. Jake resolves to gather a few necessary items and hike the last quarter mile or so to the cabin. It is his only choice as his phone had lost service sometime after he took the freeway exit before he found his vehicle now hopelessly stuck in the middle of nowhere Michigan.
It is still afternoon, around 3:30 pm with plenty of sunlight even though the overcast sky gives way to little light at ground level creating a muted gray effect, like Jake is in some old black and white film as he plods along in the snowy landscape. It's a serious situation, no phoning for help with around 18 inches of snow over the road and some distance to travel on foot to the cabin, but Jake is fairly unconcerned as his brother is to meet him the following day. Still, the last difficult trek to his destination is a foreshadowing of the path his life is now taking. When the snow is blowing it is hard to see anything, the deep snow makes travel much harder and every few steps intensifies Jake's hangover. After a while, he can no longer hold back the nausea and crouches down to vomit until there is nothing left but dry heaves. He manages to maintain a solid grasp on his legs while he purges his stomach of its contents even though his balance is off and he's on the verge of toppling over with every convulsion. Once he begins to regain his composure and stands up straight, he can see the cabin in the distance. It isn't that far away and Jake is sure he could make it there now that he had purged.
The family cabin is not really a cabin but a home built sometime in the 1920s. It likely began as a farmstead but was claimed by Jake's family to have been once owned by Al Capone during prohibition. The story went that this was a drop-off point for illegal alcohol halfway from Canada to Chicago. It is a two-story stone house with a basement and large detached garage that was converted from horse stables. It's up on a large wooded hill at the end of a long road and has a unique feature that lends itself to the Al Capone story, a tower structure the family calls the "hunting stand" that was believed to be an armed guard tower back when Al owned the home. It is also close to a river cove with a dock for a boat or the seaplane used by Capone to travel to his numerous Michigan safe houses.
The cabin looms in the distance as a dark silhouette against the mixed hardwoods and evergreen trees. In the menacing atmosphere of a Michigan snowstorm, the cabin presents a grim sanctuary in the chaos of Jake's current circumstances. Jake, although relieved to be in sight of the cabin, never remembered it the way it appeared to him now, as a reluctant refuge in a literal storm that threatened his life. The climb up the hill in the last few hundred feet was the hardest of all, but luck is with Jake when he finds the keys where his brother John had hidden them. He opens the cabin door and searches for a light switch.
Jake finds the light switch and after several tries discovers that the power is shut off. He uses his smartphone's flashlight app and finds his way to the utility panel to turn on the power to the house. To Jake's knowledge, electricity is the only modern convenience here and there is no indoor plumbing other than a hand pump at the kitchen sink. Heat is provided by a large fireplace in the living room and a wood stove for cooking in the kitchen. Thankfully, John has kept firewood both by the fireplace and near the wood stove. There is a fully stocked wood shed near the back door so Jake will have heat until spring without having to spend his quickly evaporating funds on firewood or other forms of heat.
With the electricity restored, Jake builds a fire in the fireplace in the main living area. Once the fire is well established and he can feel the warmth filling the room, he relaxes on the couch. Out of habit, Jake activates his phone and notices he now has full reception. "How strange." he thinks as he checks his voicemail that works. He dials his brother John to see if he can get a call through. To his surprise, he makes the connection.
