Impressions of Wisconsin

I have some book news coming later this week, but for now, I figured I'd regale you all with some more tales from our Great Northern Adventure!

I'm sorry for getting behind on these updates. I'm sure you're all just sitting at home around your computer, bemoaning the fact that I haven't posted anything new in a while, and wringing your hands wondering if I've been eaten by a bear.... or not.

So, we made it to Wisconsin... but what IS Wisconsin like? Well, here are some first impressions, in no particular order:

Beautiful.

The landscape and scenery is just gorgeous. It's a blend of wide open prairie, rolling hills, random cliffs, forests, rivers, lakes, and that Huge open midwestern sky. I cannot tell you how much I've missed being able to see the sky. I know that probably sounds a bit odd, but I grew up in Illinois and am used to being able to see the horizon for 360 degrees, and I've missed that ability. The sunrises (which come straight in through our bedroom window... which is... slightly less than ideal) and sunsets are absolutely glorious!

We're out in the country a ways compared to where we were in Raleigh, and the STARS are just incredible! You can see the Milky Way and it's actually a bit hard to pick out the familiar constellations because there are just so many stars!

Dark.

I thought the roads in Raleigh were dark because of the lack of streetlights compared to say, Chicago. Whoa. The roads here are Scary Dark in comparison.

Wildlife.

In the three short weeks we've been here I've seen three bald eagles! Apparently they like to hang out in the corridor between Wisconsin and Minneapolis (made that drive twice since we've been here). The second time we went there we were headed to the airport to get my mom and sister to their plane and we saw a bald eagle soaring up ahead. Exciting! The story swiftly turned terrifying as the eagle continued to swoop straight towards us as if seriously intent on landing in the road right in front of my car (I was going 70mph at the time!) Luckily, there were few other cars on the road. I kind of slammed on my brakes, certain that this eagle was intent on committing suicide-by-car.

At the last second, it flew away again, but I was a little shaken up by the whole experience.

To be honest, the only thing going through my head at the time was, "If I hit that bird, I will probably go to jail, and that is not something I can handle right now."

Kamikaze eagles. Oh, they're real, folks.

Friendly.

Everyone we have interacted with has been super friendly.

Accents.

Oh, my gracious, the accents! I have heard thicker accents in the past 3 weeks than I ever heard living in NC for 9+ years! That Scandinavian heritage is strong up here. Every time anyone says anything to me, I expect to hear a "Yeah, sure, you betcha!" coming at the end!

Northernness.

I'm not sure what to categorize this under. So we'll call it "Northern Miscellany" and that'll have to do.

We got here on Oct. 26th, which was a Monday. Two days later, we decided to go out and scope out a few AWANA clubs in the area to see if there were any that we could take the girls to the following week and get them plugged in (and maybe see if we couldn't find a church that fit us, as well). Sometime in the afternoon, it started snowing.

It kept snowing, right through the evening and into the night as we headed out to the first church.

Mind, none of this snow stuck on the ground, it was all gone the next morning, though it did cover the side of the car while we were inside the second church chatting with one of the pastors for nearly two hours. But it was real, large flakes of snow. The kind of snow that would have sent Raleigh into a bit of a tizzy and wiped out all the grocery stores for miles of all their milk and bread... and people were just sort of going about their business as if this were rather mundane and ho-hum. When we asked if this was normal weather for October, people kind of shrugged and looked thoughtful and then nodded their heads and said, "Yeah, pretty much."

Since then the weather's held pretty steadily in the 40s-50s... but it's supposed to snow again later this week, so I'm excited about that. Especially now that I have gotten Brant a jacket that fits him properly.

The grocery stores here stock Gino's East deep dish pizzas in their frozen sections.

The carbonated beverage aisle is referred to as the "pop" aisle... which just gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling.

So, those are my first impressions of Wisconsin. Hope y'all enjoyed reading about them. We miss our church and friends in NC very much, but we are enjoying this place that God has transplanted us to, as well.