It also stands for Inhumanly Oppressive Weather Annually.
(Used to live in Ames.)
Y’know I was planning on going back to Chicago next summer 
Anyways: I’ve been to most places you mention in the UK but strangely enough I’ve never been to Scotland and I’m only a few hours drive away as I live just outside Manchester in a teensy village.
It’s odd that having been all over Europe, Japan,NZ, Australia, USA, Canada and yet Scotland remains unseen to my limpid eyes.
I’m just preaparing a fresh batch of pills, hopefully this time they work instead of making my bowels roar with anger
So’s my dad. And yet I’ve never been anywhere near the state. It’s short of attractions, and not really between point A and point B for me.
I enjoy Iowa well enough. I have friends in Grinnell, which is not really representative of the business of the rest of the state. When I visit, we go for walks in town and nearby preserves, eat at one or two restaurants, and sometimes drive out to Prairie Lights bookstore. It’s mostly agricultural. I find it pastoral and calm. It’s certainly not flashy, but I have neber looked for, say, a nightclub in any community.
In Ames I was never able to find a cup of good coffee (even by Iowa standards), and the university bookstore had, well, very few books (unlike Grinnell’s, which is small but excellent). However, my friends actually spend less that 1/4 of their net on their mortgage. They have a nice big house and rarely lock the doors. Big old trees, places to bike without constant vigilance. I think about retiring there, especially since it’s so easy to use the internet to buy exotic spices like white peppercorns these days.
Sort of. I mean, Mapquest tells me that the interstate a few miles from my childhood home was actually I-494. But yes, the interstate on which one can drive most of the way from said childhood home to someplace sorta close to my grandmother’s is in fact I-35. I had a suspicion I’d goofed yesterday, but opted against bringing attention to my error. In my defense, I was not yet in possesion of a driver’s license the last time we made that particular drive more than fifteen years ago.
I’ve lived in West Des Moines, Iowa which I believe was ranked 14th recently by Newsweek for the best places for a kid to live. It seems about the same as any other rich suburb in the U.S. to me, however.
On the other hand, there are certainly some areas in Des Moines where I would feel very unsafe walking alone late at night. Des Moines still has its share of gang violence and drive-by shootings, but it seems to have improved a bit since the 1990s.
Iowa also had the 3rd highest number of meth seizures in 2004 (the most recent data I could find) of all U.S. states, but it seems the number of seizures and arrests has also declined recently.
But one thing I really love about Iowa is the weather. The temperature can go from 100 in the summer to well below 0 in the winter, in fahrenheit, of course.
I go to Grinnell College! It’s pretty much the best place ever.
Oh, sure. For example, Illinois, which isn’t all that big as states go (25th out of 50) is larger than Ireland, Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary, Portugal, Austria, the Czech Republic, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark, Slovakia, Croatia and Estonia, among others. Two states are bigger than any European nation, unless you count the full extent of Russia (much of which is not in Europe). The UK would be the 12th largest U.S. state.
Yep. Meth lab seizures are down 90%, according to the KCCI website. But we’re still abusing marijuana. How can you “abuse” marijuana?
Me too, although extreme temps mean that I stay indoors. I enjoy the thunderstorms and windy days, as well as a good rainstorm, snowfall and blizzards.
Heh. Just the other day, I was idly wondering if you Brits get claustrophobic living on an island. It’s hard to imagine all the people, places, and things I think of when I think of England, all fitting on that one little island.
His painting Stone City, Iowa is one of my favorites. (It’s nothing like American Gothic, if you’re wondering.) It depicts Iowa as almost comically idyllic rolling grassland, not flat at all. Looks like a lovely place.
Actually, in the 1980s a man in Georgia was prosecuted for having oral sex. Bowers vs. Hardwick. Hardwick was having gay sex, but the law as written forbade the sex acts without making any distinctions as to gender. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, where the Georgia law prohibiting consensual oral and/or anal sex between adults, was found to be … constitutional. 17 years later the Supreme Court overruled that decision. So it’s only been since 1999 that the law has been “obsolete.” Not a long time to be “obsolete.”
But I know more than that about Iowa. I lived there for several years, on an Air Force Base near Sargent Bluffs, Iowa. I don’t remember much about it, I was a kid. I remember it was flat, had gophers, had tremendous winter snows at times and was full of gutted B-1 bombers near airfields you could sneak in and play in. And I remember, they tested jet engines a lot in Iowa, which made the state very noisy.
Don’t post much. Usually just chime in to say I agree with something. I’ve read Bryson and I agree with this 100%.
[drpepper=native Iowan and proud of it]
Coffee house coverage through most of Ames is sparse, but there are several good coffee places in Campustown in particular (Stomping Grounds among them). There’s some other chain place now in with the Bruegger’s on Lincoln Way, as well. It’s not like West Des Moines, where throwing a rock in any direction will hit three coffee places.
On the plus side, Starbucks is actually far rarer here than in most places. Other than the ones in Hy-Vee groceries, which are new in the last few years as well, Ames only has 1, I believe. The Des Moines metro only has a few. There are quite a few indy or smaller chain coffee houses in West Des Moines. Many – like 75% – are new in the past five years. Two Caribou Coffees, three or four Amici’s… it seemed like they all sprang up at once. Most of them haven’t made it to Ames yet, but I bet they will.
Central Iowa is changing. 10 years ago, we had to drive all the way to Ankeny (20 miles) just to get bagels from a bagel store – even a chain bagel store – because we, as New Jerseyans, couldn’t live without them. There has been a HUGE amount of growth in both Ames and the western suburbs of Des Moines.
[QUOTE=fluiddruid]
. 10 years ago, we had to drive all the way to Ankeny (20 miles) just to get bagels from a bagel store
Why on earth would you make a 20 mile round trip just to buy bagels?
Seems a bit extreme to me
We drive about 65 miles to get groceries once a month or so, though the closest town with a supermarket is about 20 miles away. And I think fluiddruid was talking about a 40 mile round trip to get bagels, which really isn’t that far at all for this part of the Midwest. Less than an hour driving, all told.
I don’t live in Iowa, but I live in southwest Wisconsin, about an hour from Dubuque. We visit fairly often. Dubuque has some very sweet shops near the river in converted warehouses from the turn of the 20th century.
And the people are very friendly. A friend and I had a flat tire once, and three people stopped to see if we needed help before we got it changed. I’d expect that around home, because everybody knows everybody else, but they were all strangers.
Because then, at the end of the trip, you would have bagels. Why else?
Yes and then you’d have to drive 20 miles back with them…ridiculous.
Why not make them at home?
ETA: Then again I’m thinking of driving in England when a 40 mile round trip would take me the best part of 1.5 hours, maybe more
Partially, because the cream cheese available at grocery stores at the time was also dreadful (no whipped cream cheese at all). Frankly, it’s a lot easier to make the drive every two weeks and freeze the bagels than to make them. Especially with three picky children who each like their own flavor and aren’t very happy to be in Iowa to begin with. 
Keep in mind that we actually took a vacation back to New Jersey – partially to see friends – but also to re-experience real bagels, pizza, pasta, and cannoli.
I still miss Tem-Tee.
I’m not from Iowa, but my brother-in-law (and his entire family) as well as two of my closest friends (2 of the 4 groomsmen at my wedding) are Iowans (one from Des Moines, one from rural N-Central Iowa; Osage, if you want to be particular)
Seeing it from the outside, it seems to me to be a very different place relative to the large Texas cities I’m used to.
On one hand, it seems a little backward and provincial. In college(1994), I got hold of one of my buddy’s senior yearbook. I had a big laugh because the fashions and haircuts of his senior year were pretty much those of my junior year.
I graduated in 1991, he graduated in 1993. So fashions were roughly 4 years out of sync at the high school level.
None of my friends had ever had a tamale, or anything Mexican/Tex-Mex besides the occasional frozen burrito. Neither had they had anything remotely Asian besides maybe the La Choy canned stuff. Between them and my brother-in-law’s family, I get the distinct impression that the menu in Iowa consists of beef, potatoes, green beans, corn and the occasional chicken and turkey thrown in, and very little else.
On the other hand, the Iowans I’ve known have been to a man, some of the most friendly, generous, forgiving and loyal people I’ve ever known. These guys would give you the shirts off their backs if they thought you needed it, and would be glad they had the chance to help. They’re also very family and community-oriented, happy and generally a delight to be around.
I think in many ways Iowa is (or at least was) in many ways the embodiment of “traditional small-town America”.