A Real Snow Day

I woke up to the wind screaming at my window, a wind chill of -20 and half a foot of new snow on the ground. Schools are CLOSED for the day. It's a snow day!

Amount of snow it typically takes to cancel school

A snow day in Montana is a rare occurrence. If you don't believe me, just check out the map of how much snow it generally takes to cancel school across the U.S. I live in the dark blue area (24"). I grew up in the green area where a 'snow day' simply meant snow - any snow - half an inch, a light dusting, freezing rain that kind of looks like snow, or a rumor from the next town over that there is a slight chance of snow coming our way. It didn't take much to incite panic among Memphis' already awful drivers, burden the busing system and shut down schools for the day. While I do remember missing school several days as a kid for these southern "snow days", I don't remember any glorious knee-deep snow days full of life-size snowmen and epic sledding adventures. Our snowmen stood a foot off the ground (two if there was a lot of snow), and the sledding we did at Overton Park was more like a makeshift ice luge down a long driveway. It usually ended in tears. If anything, we spent snow days in the South bundled up inside, fearful of the bad drivers and temperatures that had dropped below our comfortable 60s. 

In the 3 years that I've been working at a school in Missoula, I've had 2 or 3 snow days, despite dozens of winter storms and feet upon feet of snow. When you get a snow day in Montana, you know it's legit. There have been many days in February that I've woken up, looked out my window at the new snow fallen overnight and thought, 'This HAS to be a snow day,' to much disappointment. The reason I haven't posted in a while is because I've been buried under a mound of snow. This Monday, 7.9 inches fell in Missoula, breaking a 74-year record for snowfall on that day. And we are going to come very close to beating the all-snowfall record for February of 43.3 inches set in 1936. If only it was a Leap Year.

My snow day plans are not as imaginative as they would have been as a kid. Heck, I woke up at 6:00 on a snow day excited about writing a blog post. After that I’ll probably shovel snow for anywhere from 1-3 hours, a task I actually enjoy since I never had to do it as a kid. Or I’ll just pay off the neighbor kid to do it if he stops by (please!) – not out of sheer laziness, but rather to support his entrepreneurial efforts. I’m pretty excited to do some much-needed laundry and cleaning. Then I’ll spend the day doing Bike & Build work – checking in with my riders, making calls to confirm overnight hosts and build days, and sending out another batch of fundraising letters.

And if the wind dies down, the wind chill warms up and I finish my to-do list, I might actually get out and enjoy the snow. A tour of the neighborhood on cross-country skis sounds quite nice.

View from my sunrise ski up Crazy Canyon this week