From Michigan to Minnesota (Rochester, Winona: to rent, motel, high school)

[mimberly]

My husband has taken a jon in the Winona, Rochester and Lacrosse area and we can live in any of these areas. I'm looking for a safe place to live for families. WE will be renting. My husband is comimg next week and really is having a hard time finding a cheap motel or room to rent as we will not be joining him until June. We have been foster/ adoptive parents in MIchigan and our 3 adopted children are bi-racial. We now live in a rural country area and would like to again but we are worried about the weather as it can be hard to deal with here in MIchigan. The move will be hard on all of us but I think mostly on our 15 year old. He now goes to a High school with perhaps 500 total kids in the whole school. Any help on anything would be greatly helpful.

[golfgal]

All of those areas are nice, safe and have good schools. Winona is probably the most 'rural' area but Rochester and LaCrosse both have surrounding towns that are very rural. You are also going to find that the class sizes in most of the towns in that area are comparable to what your son has now.

Winona is my personal favorite of those 3 towns. It is also the most central of the 3--I gather that your DH will be traveling to all three towns. It is probably the least expensive of the 3 for housing too.

[Minnehahapolitan]

Winona, Rochester and LaCrosse are not particularly commutable to each other on a daily basis. Winona and LaCrosse are preferable to Rochester, IMO. The physical town is nicer, the topography is better, they are somewhat cheaper and both have colleges that bring alot into the cities. Rochester is big, but very suburbanieish, so it doesn't feel particularly larger to me. It is the core of its hinterland, though. SE Minn. has the best climate of anywhere in the state, which is still cold. LaCrosse and Winona don't have many bad areas, Rochester has some shadier areas. Any rural area will be fine.
I also second everything that GolfGal said.