More US trip planning - possibly stupid question

[inulro]

I've just realised there may be a flaw in my plan for post C road-tripping.

Is it still going to be cold in Wisconsin and on the Upper Peninsula at the beginning of May?

Maybe we should head for points south instead.

Comments

[the_axel]

I'd think it'd be a few degrees colder than Toronto at that time of year, so it'll probably be a bit chilly. If I were you, I'd head south.

Tennessee is lovely in April.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I looked at a map last night and saw that Kentucky and Tennessee aren't that far from Chicago and thought that might be a better option at that time of year.

Of course, Jason has his heart set on going to Wisconsin for the deep fried cheese curds.

[kekhmet.livejournal.com]

Cheese Cruds... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm (whether fried *or* fresh-and-squeeky. nom nom nom ) (mis-spelling intentional in-joke from when I lived in WI and worked at the WIlly St. Food Co-op in Madison, WI - a vegan coworker always called 'em that ;-) )

II can't even tell you how happy I was to discover that for mysterious reasons, the A&W Root Beer fast food place in the terminal that serves international flights at Raleigh-Durham, NC airport .... Has fried cheese cruds, imported from WI! So I always get a Root Beer Float, and a bag of Fried Cheese Curds whilst waiting for my plane back to London when I've been there to visit family. I do this even if I'm not very hungry because Last Chance for Fried Cheese Curds and Root Beer Floats (even if the ice cream is soft-serve so not that nice on it's own) (My sister, her family, and then my mum, all moved to NC some years ago. I grew up in MI and then lived in WI for nearly 15 years prior to expatriating myself to London)

Southern WI in early May is usually nice in a Spring sort of way. Can be chilly enough to need a jacket (but not a winter coat) or warm enough midday to go outside in just a shirt at least sometimes. I can't speak to the temps farther North though. So it depends on how cold you mean by cold. I don't recall May in Southern WI being cold by any definition of cold I'd use though. It'll be Springish-to-warm rather than warm-tending-to-hot yet at that point basically.

Everything will be blooming and growing though, and normally the danger of frost is mostly past in the southern bits of the state. I'm going to guess Northern WI and da UP are still a bit chillier then though!

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I don't drink fizzy soft drinks much at all, but you should see how much root beer I consume when I'm in Canada/the US.

[kekhmet.livejournal.com]

I'd say Kentucky and Tennessee are a long way from Chicago!? You've got to transit Illinois and/or Indiana - which I've always been under the impression rather boring to drive through - to get there too if you're driving it. (Are you roadtripping at that point - I don't remember). My impression of those areas may be negatively influenced by my being from left-leaning university towns in the Upper Midwest of course ;-) My impression of Indiana I admit is mostly down to a lifetime of transiting the industrial areas around Gary - which are pretty grim and blighted, (and when I was a kid always smelt TERRIBLE) - when travelling between my hometown of Ann Arbor, MI and Chicago, IL and/or Madison,WI

(OK, actually I did drive southward through some of that area once come to think of it - with my relatives from WI when we drove down to Florida for the funeral of a relative. Grim reason for the road trip aside, I also don't recall there being much to recommend the scenery until we reached Kentucky really. Of course we just stuck to the fastest expressway or tollway I'm sure)

[lil-m-moses.livejournal.com]

Illinois is about a 5 to 6-hour drive N-S, and yes, boring as hell. Flat, corn, more flat, more corn, and then finally some hills and trees and corn in the very south. That said, if you do go south, my friends once took me to Turkey Run State Park on the southerly IN/IL border, and it was quite lovely. Personally, I'd rather do the northerly trip, even in early May.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I'm from Saskatchewan. 5-6 hours of boring as hell is better than the 11-12 hours boring as hell that it takes to drive to Red Deer, Alta (every summer, and often Christmas as well). Plus Jason, being Irish, thinks prairies are *fasctinating* and I'm trying to convince him he's wrong. That might work.

(You should have seen him when he saw his first irrigation rig in Idaho. I had to explain what it was. It was just adorable).

Though yeah, I'm thinking that plan A and the more northerly trip is the better bet.

[the_axel]

How does he feel about BBQ?
If he likes it then Memphis should make up for the lack of cheese curds.

[lil-m-moses.livejournal.com]

There's usually one last snowstorm in mid-April, and then things start to warm up. They don't usually get properly warm until the last week of May. Beginning of May will probably run in the lower to mid-teens (°C), being colder the further north you go, of course. My reference point is about halfway north in your projected itinerary, on the other side of Lake Michigan (Traverse City). All the flowers will be blooming and trees leafing out, so it'll be pretty.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

What's the other side of Michigan like? I've only driven through and can't recall a damn thing about it except for the border crossing at Detroit looking over the post-industrial wasteland).

[lil-m-moses.livejournal.com]

It's more of a north/south divide than east/west. North of about Clare (smack dab in the middle of the lower peninsula) the landscape changes to be much hillier and more forested than it is in the thumb. It's slightly more hilly and forested in western southern areas (over toward Grand Rapids) than in the thumb, but the divide to the north is much more dramatic. The northwestern lower peninsula has some biggish hills (enough for several ski resorts, but they're not real mountains), mixed deciduous/confierous forests heavy on the deciduous (many of the coniferous ones are replants after the heavy logging days 100-150 years ago), lots of lakes, small farms surrounded by thickish bands of trees, orchards, vineyards, winding roads, two lane roads when you're off the bigger highways, and a lot of just undeveloped land. Thick snow all winter, lots of golf and water sports all summer. The western coast has a number of dune areas. If you wanted to travel up the other side of the lake to the UP, through Michigan instead of Wisconsin, I can recommend stuff, especially in the Traverse City area.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

Not having a map in front of me at the moment, I was thinking of up one side down the other (I like Wisconsin. I'm weird that way).

[kekhmet.livejournal.com]

What's weird about liking Wisconsin? It's lovely terrain - you have the rolling hills of the south, the Kettle Moraine, and even the pine barrens in the middle have their own nothing-but-pine-trees charm. I still love Madison, WI too , even if I didn't want to live there full time anymore :-) I think there ight even stu;; be some decent club nights in Mad-Town
That said, I'm a Michigan girl by birth, and I do love the drive along the western side of the state - by the edges of Lake Michigan, where the hills are actually Sand dunes so huge and old they have whole forests growing on them. (and on the eastern/ Detroit side of the state, my home town of Ann Arbor is actually a reathe rnice liberal university town. I'd love to go back there for a visit again someday. If only it wasn't just a bit too far out of the way for side trips when I visit friends (and attend Wiscon) in Madison - or visit family in their relocated home of Chapel Hill, North Carolina!

Due to the prevailing winds (west to east) off the praires west of Wisconsin and across the lake, the Michigan side of Lake Michigan is much more interesting to my mind than the Wisconsin side... all the sand blows across and washes up on the Michgan side - hence the huge dunes.

We used to drive across state from Ann Arbor to Ludington on the shores of Lake Michigan for summer hols every year when I was a kid. For my mom's 70th birthday (the year after I moved here), we went back, and rented a lovely huge "cottage" on the cliff tops of the lakeshore in Ludington big enough for the extended family to stay in and went to stay there for several days at the Lake :-) I absolutely recommend if you drive through the lower peninsula of Michigan in one direction or the other to drive along the Lakeshore for at least part of the trip - possibly via Sleeping Bear Dunes

[girfan.livejournal.com]

Most of Wisconsin should be ok, but it might still be cold/with snow in the UP. I'll ask my niece and nephew since both went to uni in the UP.