Damn, other people actually live up here? I've lived in Bismarck ND my whole life, so the cold winters up here are all I know. I had a lot of shitty older vehicles growing up, and even then I can say I can only remember plugging in any of them about 10 times tops and never had a problem even on the coldest days. My wife has to plug her current car in every night in the winter, but thats the only vehicle I've ever owned that won't start in the cold, and that's mainly because it needs a new starter and battery.
Get used to frigid ass cold spells and snowstorms in the winter though like others have said. And it's a lot different here when we get storms. Down south and whatnot, if they get a couple inches of snow, everything shuts down for days. Up here, it's not irregular a few times a year to have a 12-18 inch snowstorm over the course of a night, 50-60 below with windchill etc, and the emergency routes are opened up by morning and everyone is on their way to work as if it's just any other day. Just stock up on some food, turn the heat up, and expect to hole up for the weekends when there are storms. Roads get pretty quiet on blizzard weekends. As someone else said too, the snow doesn't melt here until spring. Snow plows have lately been literally piling snow into ours and others front lawns because there is just no where else to put it all. In 2009, Bismarck had 100.2" of snow. That's over 9' of snow that doesn't melt until spring. Floods get bad when we get a fast warm spell in the spring and everything melts all at once. That was the year they had to shut down Garrison Dam for the first time in its history and we had a 100 year flood.
When it comes to driving, any front wheel drive vehicle is fine up here. They are good at keeping roads cleared up here, and I can't think of a single time I ever got stuck driving many 2WD's in town. You're more likely to spin on the ice due to shitty tires. Also, they don't salt the roads here in ND which is nice so you don't have to deal with rusting out your vehicle early, but they do put a lot of sand on the roads so your vehicle will get dirty more often. If I can say one thing though, stay off the highways after snowfall unless you absolutely have to take them. 95% of the winter accidents happen on the highway. Always people in ditches after a storm. The few times I have had to take the highway the morning after a storm, even like 5 miles, I've seen multiple cars in ditches. Pileups happen on occasion too on the highways.
Enjoy cheap prices though. Rent is cheap, food is cheap, etc. Out west by Dickinson is a different story, but even in Bismarck it hasn't gone up real crazy yet. Too far driving that the oil field workers don't get out this way a whole lot. Grand Forks has a lot of frat houses and is a college town so there is somewhat of a decent night scene. The people up here are as others have said pretty laid back and nice. It's nothing like the Fargo movie/show, and there really aren't that many Norwegian's up here unless your talking only about 80 year olds. It's pretty much like anywhere else, you've got Germans, Irish, etc. Very few Native Americans, and very few minorities though. June is a good time to come up here though. You'll get a pretty nice summer and maybe ease into the shock that is ND winters.
Figured it wouldn't be as popular/easily obtainable in a place like Grand Forks, ND, though. As for parties: military people are pretty big into partying from my experience, haha.
