With winter break comes the 3-5 week long luxury (dependent on your university) of finally getting a pause from school. You most likely go home for awhile and either vacation, staycation, or work. However, if you’re going home anywhere in Montana, you know for a fact that winter break also means icy roads, a foot of snow, a few sporadic blizzards, and if you’re willing to brave those things, it also means skiing, snowboarding, and ice skating. Montana winters are truly a force to be reckoned with.

1. First of all, the wind chill, especially on the eastern side can be insane. For example, this year we’ve already been threatened multiple times with anywhere between -15 and -40 degrees fahrenheit. This isn’t just cold, this is the same level of cold that the Arctic sees. Not cool, Montana. Not cool. Or...too cool…
2. The roads are unbearable. They’re either covered in drifting snow, or layer upon layer of ice and black ice. Or, you know, both which makes the already death-trap even worse because you can’t see it at all. On top of this you always seem to get stuck with a speed demon behind you who makes you second guess your safe driving speed the whole way home.
3. It’s so cold, that the INSIDE of your car sometimes gets covered in frost, not just the outside. So then you sit there either waiting for your defroster forever, or you use your ice scraper, which in turn gets frosty snow all up in your car.
4. Speaking of snow all up in your car, if you think you should open your car door right after it’s been snowed on, you’d better think again. Doing so promptly lands a small pile of snow right on top of your driver’s seat, which you then frantically try and dust off but end up sitting on a freezing seat anyway. Even worse, once it finally melts inside your car (if it melts), then you just have permanent puddles of water on your car mats all winter.
5. You are almost guaranteed to slip and die at SOME point. I figure skated for over eight years, but put me in normal shoes on outdoor ice and consider me a gonner. You’re also lucky if anyone even bothers to check that you didn’t just crack your skull on the ice. So you’d better hope that you do not do just exactly that. Nope, more than likely, you’ll slip, lie there in shock and embarrassment, and everyone will pretend that they definitely did not see you, because if they stop they might slip and die as well.
6. On the bright side, you will probably manage to binge watch every show you could possibly think of during a winter this extreme. All seven seasons of “Gilmore Girls” done and check. “Stranger Things” pfft, you finished that in one day. This icy snow mess is the perfect excuse to Netflix and Chill your life away. And while you’ll secretly feel like a snow potato, you will enjoy every moment of your Netflix time, don’t even try and deny it.