What am I tried to accomplish? I hate living in wintry places. And I keep moving to the worst of them. Here is the rundown.
Born and raised in Roundup Montan. I thought that was winter. But now as we have lived in Livingston, and in our consistently scouring the map to see where the warmest and driest places in Montana are. We keep finding out that Roundup is the warmest and dryest place in the state.
Billings Montana. Same as above. But even more warm sometimes.
Upstate New York. While living there and racing my mountain bike I was in heaven. I considered the winter’s cold but short. Everybody around me thought they were horrible. I found them to last very short. So short in fact like a month or two. Other than that, it was always in transition and the summers were absolutely amazing. well, except for the humidity and ice.
Connecticut. Same as above but even better. I was able to ride my bike year-round. That’s when things started to turn for the worse. I decided to move back to Montana. I chose Missoula. Not only because of its art and culture but because along with the flathead corridor and the Bitterroots, it seemed to always be the warmer place in Montana. And most importantly next to the mountains. You know mountains are very very important to me. I cannot live anywhere without mountains and so Missoula seems to be the best place. And indeed the winters were not as short as New England, but MAYBE doable.
But then I started to get a little grouchy in Missoula because of the winters. YES, they were a little bit longer than New England, but the worst thing was inversion and clouds. I thought this place was not for me and then I lost track of everything. I moved to Bozeman.
I realized that was the coldest place I have ever lived. The winters seemed to last two to three months longer than even in Missoula. I mean, you only had like three months of summer and even then it wasn’t that warm. We escaped over the pass to Livingston two years ago.
And I thought I was in heaven. The summers are hot and the population was low. And this little town seems to be a lot like Missoula. But when the first winter hit it first seemed okay. A couple of snowstorms but it melted right away and the whole winter all the way up to March it was dry. I thought holy cow this is it.
This is awesome. The only problem was the wind. Now after surviving two. Well, I have to say I haven’t survived the second winter yet and this is the big problem. After a couple of early seasons snow storms indeed everything dried off. It was just cold and windy. Which in itself means winter and my body feels like it wintered.
And then as you go into March you think oh my god Spring is almost here and then it hits and it snows every day throughout the month and into April and May. And if this year is like last year, it will snow until June. So yeah. Livingston seems to be okay until you hit March, but then it’s winters are offset into when normal people would be experiencing spring.
My body’s very messed up. I need to be near the desert but in the mountains. This is not sounding like Montana at all.
Mo & Bill 