Those who know me know I love extreme weather.  Not the type of extreme weather like Hurricane Sandy, where people lose their lives and homes, but rather loud crashing thunderstorms or big snow.  Highs in the 90s.  Big waves.  (I desperately miss Midwest thunderstorms…but that is for another post)

So I was excited to move to Montana and experience huge winters–after all, the year before I moved here, there was record snowfall.  Snow at Logan Pass in Glacier National Park was still “sign-high” by the 4th of July!  I imagined blizzards and being cut off from society for a few days, tunneling out the front door,  losing power for a day or two,  carrying supplies behind me on a sled and camping out by the wood stove–you know, like the Laura Ingalls during The Long Winter.  Making button candles from wagon wheel grease and logs from hay…okay…not that far.   

There has just always been something that appeals to me about being briefly isolated from society…living in the log cabin in the woods with nothing to rely on but our wits.  We do live in a log cabin.  There are a lot of Douglas Fir trees around our house…but the grocery store is just two blocks away, and I could holler from an open window across the street to my neighbor.  

Nevertheless, I get so terribly excited when a winter weather advisory is posted, when meteorologist Mark Heyka puts up yellow and rarely, red, in the weather tracker as opposed to boring green.  Invariably, the snow fizzles out over the Idaho panhandle, drops south to the Bitterroot, or is swallowed by the Cabinet Mountains.  We have had a few good snows since I’ve lived here, but nothing even close to what I experienced in Michigan.  Heck, I had more snow days in 2 years working in Grand Haven, MI than in all 15 years in Montana.  Schools never close unless wind accompanies the snow (there has to be “emergency travel only”).  Where is my wild, wonderful west? I am rather disappointed.

My husband says if I went snowboarding with him I’d see big snow, but it isn’t quite what I have in mind.  Again, in my imaginings, no one gets hurt and no one suffers from the storm.  We just live inwardly for a few days, watching the power of nature and appreciating our solid home, stocked cupboard and forced family time.  So bring it on, Montana.  I’m waiting.  Besides, the Midwest and East Coast could use a break.

View from my couch