I know we’ve sanctimoniously posted about how to find things to do in the rain, but there are just some rain storms you don’t play around with:

That’s right, a hurricane. In Mexico City for a few days before heading to Cancun for a friend’s wedding, we opened our email early Sunday morning to a warning message from Danny’s Dad- Hurricane Rina had been born. As we trolled various weather sites on the Internet we soon realized he wasn’t kidding, this was gearing up to be a direct hit, to exactly where we were heading.

So we did what any traveler would do- we waited. We worried, played the odds, thought of various scenarios, but completely avoided making a decision. We waited until the last possible moment and then it was time. Tuesday morning, just two hours before our scheduled departure to Cancun, we bit the bullet and bought a ticket home. Although it would have made for great pictures, we weren’t willing to stand on a balcony overlooking the ocean watching a the eye of a hurricane approach.

We felt defeated, deflated and above all frustrated on that flight home. We were supposed to spend the week snorkeling, diving and exploring cenotes. We were supposed to be at our friend’s wedding on Saturday, toes in the sand, frozen cocktail in hand.

And so by early Wednesday morning we were back at work and that defeated feeling- so much more intense than the day before. As the hours ticked by it was clear Rina was becoming less and less of a storm. With each update she was downgraded, until Thursday night when she hit Cancun as a low grade tropical storm and then, with a whimper instead of a bang, it was over.

Don’t worry, the story does have a good ending. That whimper petered out even more so by Friday evening we were back on a plane to Cancun to attend the wedding!

What would you have done? Have you ever changed your plans for severe weather?

Photo Credit: NOAA, Flickr User mac_ivan