If you haven’t noticed, I LOVE snow! I live in Northern Colorado and I woke up to almost 10 inches of the fluffy, white perfection. Just so beautiful and pure…

Growing up in the mountains, my house would get more snow than the town. When other students had to go to school, my brother and I would get snow days because we wouldn’t be able to get off the mountain with all the snow! We had so much fun building snow forts and sledding.

Three years older than me, my brother was always in the front of the sled and I would hold on tight as we zoomed down our hill. I am not sure how old I was, but I will never forget the time he leaned back to make the sled go and knocked me right in the nose. My beautiful, white snow was instantly splattered with the bright, crimson blood that gushed from my little nose.

As a responsible big brother, he ran to get help. I remember crying and trying to crawl up the snowy mountain. I was wearing 90’s style mittens, that were at least four different colors, and I kept touching them to my face to see if the red liquid had stopped flowing. Every time my mitten came away with more blood, I would cry harder.

I must have been quite young. Probably no more than six years old. When we were back in our little house, my mom made us chocolate and marshmallows. Twenty-five years later, and the thought of hot chocolate with marshmallows on a snow day is a mugful of nostalgia. Of course, a bloody nose is never the best thing, but I cannot be positive that I would have that memory at all if it hadn’t been slightly traumatizing.

It may have been the same year when I was sledding down the driveway and my German Shepard puppy, Jack, was outside with me. After going down the top slop for the first time, my dog ran down beside me then grabbed the strap of my hot-pink, overall snow pants and started pulling me back up the driveway!

I have plenty of silly stories in the snow. As someone growing up in the mountains, I also grew up at a ski area with most of my friends. Times I will never forget…

I’ll never underestimate the snow though. It can be dangerous and deathly. We had a blizzard in ‘97 and my dad’s truck died a mile from home while he was driving back from work. This was when we had one cell phone, no landline, and very little service. My brother and I were in our little house with our mom, enjoying the storm and waiting for our dad to get home. When he finally walked through the door of our one-room house, he looked like the abominable snowman. He was covered in inches of snow and icicles hung from his mustache.

I don’t think I ever saw my mother move so fast. From my recollection of that time, my dad was risking hypothermia. When his truck died, he grabbed everything in his truck and wrapped it around himself. My dad grew up hiking, skiing and hunting in New Hampshire before he came to Colorado to do it all, so he was usually prepared with extra blankets, gloves, hats, etc. He was not prepared for having to walk a mile up the mountain in one of the worst blizzards in Colorado’s history.

I know I am not street smart, but I have learned to be snow smart. My car is always winter-prepared with an emergency kit in case I get stuck in a storm. As a general rule though, I will not travel long distances in a snow storm and I will not venture out during a blizzard. The best thing to do on snow days like this, is to stay inside and read a book with a steaming mug of hot chocolate :)

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