But what about northern Wisconsin and beyond?

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I do like the UP, there is something about it up there, it's like Alaska or something, I mean, that's the only place I have been in all of the United states that reminds me of all of the UP. It's like a separate kind of place you know, with their own deal. Plus everybody really needs each other up there, you know, there's no joke I mean in the winter up there, you better damn well know your neighbors up there. If you see a car stalled you better stop. That's what it takes to build a community. You got to need each other and they still do in the UP so that's a cool place. - Greg Brown

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Wednesday Thoughts

The Northwoods

    If you drive far enough north you will reach the end of the Wisconsin border and hit the Michigan border, and once you are across the border into Michigan you will be in the UP as they call it. Northern Wisconsin is called the Northwoods, by some people including us. That is where we go to get our snow and deep forest fix. A few weekends ago we went there with a bunch of friends, and of course as always, a snowstorm was coming through right as we started our journey up there. But, we made it, and had a great weekend. Well, we didn't bring our skis which was a bummer since we got tons of snow, but we went for some hikes in the woods. I love walking through snowy forests, it's one of the best things I know.

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A little bit of Sweden?

    Wisconsin does look like Sweden a bit, well a tiny bit. There are lots of small lakes here, and up in the North Woods too. There are many many other tree species and plant species though, that I don't recognize from home, neither Sweden or Alaska. This summer (I know this was the goal last summer but for real, this summer..) I will try my best to learn some more about the plants in this region. I think I did pretty well this past summer though, we hiked in a lot of different state parks and I tried to identify as many flowers and plants as I could along the way. 

    How about you? Are you a fan of walks through the forest? Or would you rather be in the mountains, or maybe on the tundra, or just downtown?

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"Unseasonable" Warm Weather

As half of October passed everyone are wondering where the snow is. Snow usually appear around the middle of October, at the latest! We did have some snow back in September but that snow disappeared as fast as it came. The meteorologist are calling it "unseasonable" warm weather. We are just now starting to have temperatures below freezing again, and with last years long winter it makes me wonder what this winter will be like.

This past year we had 200 days of winter (counting days with temperatures below 50F, October 4th 2012-May 9th 2013). The past season we had one of the coldest winters in history with temperatures dropping down to -50F, yes -50F, do you know what it feels like to be outside when it is -50F? We had several consecutive weeks with -40, I even biked to school in -40F/C.

This summer we had one of the warmest summers ever, up to 92F, after a winter with down to -50F. It makes me a little worried about this winter, will we see temperatures down to -40F/C as a normality this winter too? We had tons of snow last season, how much snow will we get this season since we haven't got any at all so far?

Either way I am craving winter dorkiness/adventures sooner rather than later. Time will tell.

Until then: