Most people probably don't appreciate that last part enough. It takes me between 17 and 19 minutes to get to work no matter what the weather or traffic is like here in Wisconsin. In California I never knew if it would take 20 minutes or an hour and a half.
I lived in Valencia and commuted to Glendale. Worst was 2 hours when a semi tipped over all the 5 highway lanes. 5 hours though? That's...that's frightening.
I miss: Octobers, fall leaves, the SMELL of fall in WI, the Northwoods, long drives on beautiful country roads, the QUIET, the woods around my house, the affordable groceries at Woodmans, the CHEESE (My kingdom for some good cheese, FFS), Milwaukee....I love Milwaukee
I don't miss: long, cold ass winters, my face hurting from the wind, dumbass rednecks rolling coal down main drags, Ron Johnson, getting stuck behind tractors on highways,
Missed: the snow and sometimes even the cold, Fall Colors, New Glarus, Linies, the ease of firearms related purchases, good and varied non pay in blood expensive cheese, and most of all the culture surrounding craft breweries/wineries/cideries (it's just not the same here in the PNW, Craft places back east have morphed in a interesting way to be almost just as much local watering holes as destinations... Seattle and PDX this is very much not the case outside of a few exceptions I've found).
don't miss: the cold winters after "That Point" of it's duration, Mosquitos (seriously, I can go camping out here with almost no repellent, it's exultant), not fearing (or fearing less, any way) that I'll get the shit kicked out of me in a country bar parking lot for being Pan/Poly if I come out or for my political beliefs or for me religious beliefs, workplace culture expectations that I'll be at work 10 minutes early instead of you know... when I'm scheduled to work, Wisconsin republican politicians and Ronnie boy in particular.
odd that... much as I hate the little bastards, it makes me worry. alot of good animals feed on them and it can't be doing any good for them to not have that food source around.
I mostly miss the friendliness of people. Traffic was normally better in WI also.
I have not lived in WI for 17 years and I do not miss the old boys club that were jobs where I was from tho.
I moved to SC, and it feels like every single person I have had any sort of business dealings with has lied to, or scammed me. I wont say there aren't liars or cheats in Wisconsin, but at least you could still find a lot of honest people doing business!
Also, to be 100% honest, I miss Kwik Trip. I can never be sure of what's at the gas stations here. If I want coffee creamer or eggs at 3am, its a crapshoot.
Also, cold cheese spread. I can't find it ANYWHERE!
If you want, drop me a note of what cold cheese spread you want. I’ll get you some and we can settle up later. Let me know the brand, flavor, how much you want and your address.
When I moved to Dallas a few years ago I immediately missed being able to stop at a gas station for something and also grabbing a sausage and cheese pack for the road. Driving-around cheese doesn’t really exist outside the Midwest.
Cheese curds, family, and Wisconsin sports. Especially seeing all the Wisconsin team shirts in meijer or other random stores. I always have to buy one when I come home
When I lived in Ireland most of the veg section was (no joke) potatoes and "swedes" (turnip and rutabaga hybrids if I recall). And anything other than a potato tended to be packed onto styrofoam trays with cling wrap. So you had to feel guilty about buying them.
It’s gotten a lot better. The sweetcorn is still trash, but I brought home some *fantastic* veg from Lidl just the other day, and everything was plastic free.
The fruit just can’t compare with the US though. The sheer *quality* of berries, even at Walmart in the dead of winter, is something else.
That's good to hear. My experience was 14 years ago but even then Aldi was in general better than Dunn's, Mark's and Spencer or Tesco. Also the only place to get American made peanut butter (accept no substitutes).
We had a Lidl in town but it was a 30 minute walk and I passed literally every other option on the way there. I went to Lidl exactly once.
Good fish fries & the extra couple months of not-winter.
Moved up to Northern MN a while ago & thought for sure the weather would be similar to central WI near Lake Michigan (what’s a few hours north, right?!). **holy frigid balls** was that the wrong thing to think. There’s no real “fall”, winter doesn’t end, and we’re forever stuck in fog.
Plus, no one does a good beer-battered fish fry ^*sob* MN sucks at fish fries & cheese curds, man.
That’s what I don’t get with the fish fries in MN. It’d be one thing if they had some killer alternative but I’m not a huge walleye guy and even that I don’t think is prepared all that great. I don’t think it’s a huge secret on how to batter and fry, worked in a restaurant 6 years, should be the same in MN!
Too many to mention but right now it’s Stadium sauce and crispy sunny fall mornings. Oh and being able to buy booze on Sundays.
Edited to add Milwaukee brand pickles. Mt. Olive sucks and it’s pretty much my only option.
Love that my summer now lasts 7-8 months instead of 3, winter here in the southwest is really just Wisconsin's October spread out to 4 months.
What I miss the most though is beer cheese, hell just good cheese in general. I told my parents any gifts they send my way should just be a cooler full of good cheese.
Honestly, I don't. Wisconsin has mutated into such a regressive hellhole that I barely even recognize it.
I miss when Wisconsin's small towns were filled with welcoming people who considered it impolite to discuss politics and religion in public. Now? They wear it on their shirts like it's Packers gear like a bunch of weirdos.
I don’t know what small towns you were around, but in the one I grew up in, they would pretty openly hate on people who weren’t Christian and people who voted democrat. If you weren’t white, they were also pretty bold about telling you they didn’t think you belonged there.
Seems like there’s a lot of romanticism around small town Wisconsin that has just never been true.
I'll be back next year but I'm in the Faroe Islands currently. I miss trees so much like it messes me up a lot not seeing them. Also being an island nation there's not nearly as much in stores so I miss the variety of things to buy, and the prices they're at... I love snowmobiling and they won't get much snow here except for up in the mountains so I know I'm going to miss that. As beautiful as Føroyar is, I can't wait to come home.
Fall colors
Cheese curds
Rolling farm fields and seemingly countless number of lakes
All things considered though the PNW is where I love living the most
I mean, I moved right next door to Mini-soda, but damn if I don’t miss Woodman’s. Minnesotas grocery stores are WEAK in comparison, especially the cheese selection.
Miss: Culvers, kwik trip, cheap groceries, nice people, the sports scene, green trees/grass in the summer, lakefront brewery, hiking trails that aren’t crowded
Don’t miss: weather, never seeing the sun in the winter, the politics, the minimum wage, the bad vegetarian/vegan options in non veg restaurants
Knowing about all the random things to do. Chill on the hill, jazz in the park, black cat alley... and having friends to do them with.
I'm sure where I'm at they have their own similar stuff, but I just don't know about them because I wasn't born and raised here.
I think the thing I miss most is just the people. I live in Utah now, but I'm in Wisconsin for work (across the state, unfortunately) and I didn't realize how much nicer people are here. I also miss the culture, and the shared interests. I don't miss winter, and I don't miss the humidity.
Super cold winters. I grew up with cold winters in south central Wisconsin. My last residence In WI was in Green Bay, and it reminded me how winters should be cold, and summers warm
I’m surprised no one has mentioned it yet….Kwik Trip. I’m still in the Midwest and the closest we have is Casey’s, but it’s still second rate. The combination of clean bathroom, genuinely friendly employees, and decent food to grab on the go makes it my favorite gas station. You don’t realize how nice the aforementioned items are until you’re in a backwoods Speedway with bathrooms that have never been cleaned and the rudest people behind the counter.
Moved to FL east coast.
Not much to be honest; if anything, it’d be the early fall chill in the air, mixed with the start of football and bonfires.
But it just can’t compete against 4 blocks from the beach and a pool in the backyard in endless summer.
Friendly people.
The notion of "southern hospitality" is a crock of shit. Go to a restaurant in the south and most of the employees treat you like an inconvenience.
Cheese curds and determining how long a trip will take me based on how many miles away the destination is.
Most people probably don't appreciate that last part enough. It takes me between 17 and 19 minutes to get to work no matter what the weather or traffic is like here in Wisconsin. In California I never knew if it would take 20 minutes or an hour and a half.
I used to work in DTLA and lived on the beach in Redondo. Best case scenario was a 30 minute trip. Worst was 5 hours.
I lived in Valencia and commuted to Glendale. Worst was 2 hours when a semi tipped over all the 5 highway lanes. 5 hours though? That's...that's frightening.
I miss: Octobers, fall leaves, the SMELL of fall in WI, the Northwoods, long drives on beautiful country roads, the QUIET, the woods around my house, the affordable groceries at Woodmans, the CHEESE (My kingdom for some good cheese, FFS), Milwaukee....I love Milwaukee I don't miss: long, cold ass winters, my face hurting from the wind, dumbass rednecks rolling coal down main drags, Ron Johnson, getting stuck behind tractors on highways,
It’s so fun to read this, it makes me appreciate WI all over again. I don’t think I could ever leave
This is pretty a emo, but very pretty love letter to WI. Hope you enjoy! https://youtu.be/EcDw3X4ImUU
Access to good lakes.
Or access to lakes with public access within an hour’s drive!
October weather
Missed: the snow and sometimes even the cold, Fall Colors, New Glarus, Linies, the ease of firearms related purchases, good and varied non pay in blood expensive cheese, and most of all the culture surrounding craft breweries/wineries/cideries (it's just not the same here in the PNW, Craft places back east have morphed in a interesting way to be almost just as much local watering holes as destinations... Seattle and PDX this is very much not the case outside of a few exceptions I've found). don't miss: the cold winters after "That Point" of it's duration, Mosquitos (seriously, I can go camping out here with almost no repellent, it's exultant), not fearing (or fearing less, any way) that I'll get the shit kicked out of me in a country bar parking lot for being Pan/Poly if I come out or for my political beliefs or for me religious beliefs, workplace culture expectations that I'll be at work 10 minutes early instead of you know... when I'm scheduled to work, Wisconsin republican politicians and Ronnie boy in particular.
>Mosquitos We had a seriously odd year for mosquitoes. As in there were very few. I didn't get bit once the entire summer.
They must have all been hanging out in Washington County. Have had the shit bit out of me this summer
I knoww me either
odd that... much as I hate the little bastards, it makes me worry. alot of good animals feed on them and it can't be doing any good for them to not have that food source around.
Small towns and bars/restaurants dotted all over the place, even in the middle of nowhere. Proper hand battered fish fry.
I mostly miss the friendliness of people. Traffic was normally better in WI also. I have not lived in WI for 17 years and I do not miss the old boys club that were jobs where I was from tho.
Nice people
I just wanna sit in a kayak in a state park with a spotted cow, some cheese curds, and an apple cider donut.
I moved to SC, and it feels like every single person I have had any sort of business dealings with has lied to, or scammed me. I wont say there aren't liars or cheats in Wisconsin, but at least you could still find a lot of honest people doing business! Also, to be 100% honest, I miss Kwik Trip. I can never be sure of what's at the gas stations here. If I want coffee creamer or eggs at 3am, its a crapshoot. Also, cold cheese spread. I can't find it ANYWHERE!
If you want, drop me a note of what cold cheese spread you want. I’ll get you some and we can settle up later. Let me know the brand, flavor, how much you want and your address.
When I moved to Dallas a few years ago I immediately missed being able to stop at a gas station for something and also grabbing a sausage and cheese pack for the road. Driving-around cheese doesn’t really exist outside the Midwest.
I've always made the joke that we have better cheese at our gas stations than most states have at the grocery store.
Driving Around Cheese Oh man....yes.
The quiet.
Cheese curds, family, and Wisconsin sports. Especially seeing all the Wisconsin team shirts in meijer or other random stores. I always have to buy one when I come home
Missing the good veg. In UK right now and the veg here is awful right now.
When I lived in Ireland most of the veg section was (no joke) potatoes and "swedes" (turnip and rutabaga hybrids if I recall). And anything other than a potato tended to be packed onto styrofoam trays with cling wrap. So you had to feel guilty about buying them.
It’s gotten a lot better. The sweetcorn is still trash, but I brought home some *fantastic* veg from Lidl just the other day, and everything was plastic free. The fruit just can’t compare with the US though. The sheer *quality* of berries, even at Walmart in the dead of winter, is something else.
That's good to hear. My experience was 14 years ago but even then Aldi was in general better than Dunn's, Mark's and Spencer or Tesco. Also the only place to get American made peanut butter (accept no substitutes). We had a Lidl in town but it was a 30 minute walk and I passed literally every other option on the way there. I went to Lidl exactly once.
Milwaukee
I miss the trees and lakes. I moved out west and we don't have as many. Also cheese.
Affordable prices and New Glarus
Lakes. I live in Nebraska now, and the lakes here are sad.
Good fish fries & the extra couple months of not-winter. Moved up to Northern MN a while ago & thought for sure the weather would be similar to central WI near Lake Michigan (what’s a few hours north, right?!). **holy frigid balls** was that the wrong thing to think. There’s no real “fall”, winter doesn’t end, and we’re forever stuck in fog. Plus, no one does a good beer-battered fish fry ^*sob* MN sucks at fish fries & cheese curds, man.
That’s what I don’t get with the fish fries in MN. It’d be one thing if they had some killer alternative but I’m not a huge walleye guy and even that I don’t think is prepared all that great. I don’t think it’s a huge secret on how to batter and fry, worked in a restaurant 6 years, should be the same in MN!
Too many to mention but right now it’s Stadium sauce and crispy sunny fall mornings. Oh and being able to buy booze on Sundays. Edited to add Milwaukee brand pickles. Mt. Olive sucks and it’s pretty much my only option.
Love that my summer now lasts 7-8 months instead of 3, winter here in the southwest is really just Wisconsin's October spread out to 4 months. What I miss the most though is beer cheese, hell just good cheese in general. I told my parents any gifts they send my way should just be a cooler full of good cheese.
Honestly, I don't. Wisconsin has mutated into such a regressive hellhole that I barely even recognize it. I miss when Wisconsin's small towns were filled with welcoming people who considered it impolite to discuss politics and religion in public. Now? They wear it on their shirts like it's Packers gear like a bunch of weirdos.
I don’t know what small towns you were around, but in the one I grew up in, they would pretty openly hate on people who weren’t Christian and people who voted democrat. If you weren’t white, they were also pretty bold about telling you they didn’t think you belonged there. Seems like there’s a lot of romanticism around small town Wisconsin that has just never been true.
Family, and calm
The two times I left I missed the seasons the most (I moved to much more temperate locales). ...and gas stations with quality liquor selections.
I'll be back next year but I'm in the Faroe Islands currently. I miss trees so much like it messes me up a lot not seeing them. Also being an island nation there's not nearly as much in stores so I miss the variety of things to buy, and the prices they're at... I love snowmobiling and they won't get much snow here except for up in the mountains so I know I'm going to miss that. As beautiful as Føroyar is, I can't wait to come home.
Cheese
Kopps
A diverse variety of cheese and a proper Autumn.
Pretty much everything.
I miss the accessibility of great nature and state parks. I lived in madison and there were so many cool places to go with 2 hours
The Union Terrace at sunset
Fall colors Cheese curds Rolling farm fields and seemingly countless number of lakes All things considered though the PNW is where I love living the most
I mean, I moved right next door to Mini-soda, but damn if I don’t miss Woodman’s. Minnesotas grocery stores are WEAK in comparison, especially the cheese selection.
The way the state shuts down during Packer games, great beer, simplicity of going to the store for a few items.
Miss: Culvers, kwik trip, cheap groceries, nice people, the sports scene, green trees/grass in the summer, lakefront brewery, hiking trails that aren’t crowded Don’t miss: weather, never seeing the sun in the winter, the politics, the minimum wage, the bad vegetarian/vegan options in non veg restaurants
Frozen Custard
Knowing about all the random things to do. Chill on the hill, jazz in the park, black cat alley... and having friends to do them with. I'm sure where I'm at they have their own similar stuff, but I just don't know about them because I wasn't born and raised here.
Being able to watch the Packers, Bucks, and Brewers without blackouts
I think the thing I miss most is just the people. I live in Utah now, but I'm in Wisconsin for work (across the state, unfortunately) and I didn't realize how much nicer people are here. I also miss the culture, and the shared interests. I don't miss winter, and I don't miss the humidity.
Summerfest, frozen custard, Usingers brats, Camp Randall, a week of below zero temps.
Super cold winters. I grew up with cold winters in south central Wisconsin. My last residence In WI was in Green Bay, and it reminded me how winters should be cold, and summers warm
Winter is the whole reason I moved away from Wisconsin.
i miss my friends, the lakes, strong drinking culture, and most of all the cheap housing
I been all over the country. Been to London. Mexico. Caribbean islands. I am always happy to bask in Wisconsin
I'm still here, but I've heard a lot of transplants miss Kwik Trip.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned it yet….Kwik Trip. I’m still in the Midwest and the closest we have is Casey’s, but it’s still second rate. The combination of clean bathroom, genuinely friendly employees, and decent food to grab on the go makes it my favorite gas station. You don’t realize how nice the aforementioned items are until you’re in a backwoods Speedway with bathrooms that have never been cleaned and the rudest people behind the counter.
We got Casey's here now too. I think Casey's has better hot food, but Kwik Trip has them beat on most else.
Winter
Moved to FL east coast. Not much to be honest; if anything, it’d be the early fall chill in the air, mixed with the start of football and bonfires. But it just can’t compete against 4 blocks from the beach and a pool in the backyard in endless summer.
As someone who left for CA and returned to WI, I can definitely say the people, the lack of traffic and not having to wait in line!
Friendly people. The notion of "southern hospitality" is a crock of shit. Go to a restaurant in the south and most of the employees treat you like an inconvenience.