I live in Minnesota. Used to live in St. Paul.
Not sure if this has been mentioned but it’s not always the coldness of the winters that gets people down - it’s the duration of them. Winter lasts a long** time (6 months?)
Aside from that, I love the Twin Cities. Lots of places to see and things to do.
I came to Minnesota from Ohio in 1990 to go to grad school and intended to leave–I hated big cities and concrete. Long story of why I ended up staying, but here I am eighteen years later. I’ve thought of moving–it is an option now. However, I can never come up with a place where I’d be happier. Every place has its pros and cons, and when I’ve seriously thought of leaving, I’ve realized I’d miss it here. (Exception: If heat didn’t make me sick, and if the economies were better, I’d move to Orlando or Tucson to be closer to family).
There are about three weeks in January when I absolutely cannot STAND winter and think I’ll go insane. But I wait outside at a bus stop with no shelter, and those are the three weeks where we get sub zero temps with lots of wind. I get through it because I dress for it. The natives look at me like I’m crazy, though, because they’re outside in T-shirts and shorts. (I’m only somewhat kidding.)
Thing is, the cold is a dry cold, and that does make a difference. 25 in Columbus is brutal, because it’s so humid. 25 here is no big deal, and I even find anything down to 17 is no big deal. Of course, the dry is not fun on skin or sinuses, and I put a humidifier on my furnace and also use a stand-alone in the bedroom while I’m sleeping.
I do hate the short days in the winter here. I hate them less now that I take Vitamin D supplements, and it’s something all Minnesotans should consider:
http://blogs2.startribune.com/blogs/bodytalk/2008/09/22/ask-dr-vitamin/
Summer heat/humidity ain’t nothing here compared to Ohio. Of course, I do have A/C, but I don’t do well in hot weather in general. Still, give me a Minnesota summer over Ohio any day. There are very few days where I don’t want to be outside at all.
There are lots of little neighborhood parks scattered throughout the cities, and over by St. Thomas, you’ll be close to the trails along the Mississippi River and those are wonderful. If you want larger parks, I think anywhere you live here, you’ll be within an hour to an hour and a half of at least one state park, and probably within 30 minutes of a regional park. There are many beautiful places in Minnesota, and it’s just a hop to get over the border into Wisconsin. I love mountains and the ocean, and I admit I miss those sometimes, but I also am very satisfied here when I need an outdoor fix.
Plus, you can see cool things in the Cities themselves if you keep your eyes open. I’ve seen bald eagles over downtown Minneapolis and my own neighborhood, for example, and a pair of sharp shinned hawks live in my neighborhood. As someone said up the chain, if you go up into a skyscraper and look out the window, you’ll see a forest of trees.
If you want to see a lot of bald eagles, go to Wabasha when the ice breaks up on Lake Pepin, but before the river thaws out:
Minnesota Nice is definitely a confusing concept. However, University cultures, in my experience, tend to look after their own, so my guess is you’ll have no problems finding social opportunities that way. I think with the greater influx of immigrants and folks from other states that we’ve seen in the eighteen years I’ve been here, it’s gotten a bit easier.
Anyway, I used to live near Macalester and absolutely love that part of town. Check out Victoria Crossing on Grand Avenue–lots of fun restaurants and shops there. Good luck with the interview!
Budget money every year to travel somewhere warm over your winter break. Maybe twice if you can swing it. 6 months of winter is too much for any mortal to remain sane. By February the streets will be covered with gray slush and you will be sick of confinement with your family. You will need a break.
Other than that, the lakes are great! I personally prefer Mpls. to St. Paul, but they are both nice.
You are right to worry. I’ve lived in Denver (well… Boulder), and I’ve lived in the Twin Cities. Saying you know cold weather because you lived in Denver is like saying you know the bottom of the ocean because you’ve seen a puddle. The Twin Cities are miserably, horribly cold. I live several hundred miles north of them now, but our winters are nowhere near as bad as those freezing, wind-swept plains of southern Minnesota. I remember waiting for the bus in -27 degree weather, because my car had become encased in a pristine sheath of half-inch ice overnight and I couldn’t get into it.
Of course, in contrast, the summers are… incredibly hot & humid.
Yup, sucks in both seasons.
Weather-aside, the Twin Cities have a lot of great things. But the weather… yeah, it’s bad.
Ok now, this is a bit exaggerated, don’t you think? I readily admit that I haven’t known cold for as long and relentless as it gets in the Cities. But in my senior year of high school there was a week where the temp did not exceed -20F – and of couse was colder still at night. So I have experienced cold. But I’m sure it makes a huge difference when it never lets up, as opposed to the temp rising to the 50s a week later, as is often the case during Denver winters.
Oh and as for hot and humid…you do see my current location, right? From what I can tell, a Minneapolis summer vs. a North Carolina summer is approximately comparable to a Denver winter vs. a Minneapolis winter.
I went to college in Winona, and lived in St. Paul for awhile. It was years ago so I won’t comment on the culture, but I have to say the winters were brutal. I’m in Colorado Springs at the moment, which isn’t that different from Denver I don’t think. It’s only an hour away.
Winter here is nothing like it was in St. Paul. I’ve lived in the UP and Wisconsin, but that time in St. Paul seemed even colder. It’s mostly January and February though.
I have pleasant memories from there, and I’v always said I’d live there if anywhere in the midwest. But, my memories of snow and freezing are more vivid than my memories of summer.
Approximately 1997 or 1998: It’s 30 below at 10am.
I am, and everyone else is for that matter, at work. I have a conference call with people from San Francisco and St. Petersburg (FL).
Them: We hear it’s a little cold up there right now.
Me: Yeah, it’s 30 below.
Them: My God! And you’re at work?!?!
Me: Yes, and not only that, but everyone else is here too. This is Minnesota. It’s not a valid excuse not to make it to work.
Them: But your car works?
Me: Yeah, we winterize them up here and I’ve never had an issue with my car not starting. You just have to let it warm up a bit before you drive it.
One Idiot: And your computers are working?
Me: (laughing) Yes…
Them: But what’s your office like?
Me: Well, we have these newfangled things called furnaces. It’s quite warm in here.
A Guy from Florida: I’d never live up there.
Me: Let’s have this conversation in August and I can ask you why you live there.
Very true. Brainiac4 and I are currently playing 4th Edition D&D - with someone he has known since he was six and used to date my sister when he was sixteen (long before Brainiac4 and I married), a guy we’ve both known since we were 17, and a guy Brainiac4 has known since 7th grade. Invited was a guy he’s known since grade school and I dated in high school - but he hasn’t been able to join us.
It isn’t that long time Minnesotan’s don’t accept “new blood” in a group - it just isn’t always comfortable to fit in when you realize that these people have all known each other more than half their lives.
You incestuous little trollop, you! 
But yeah, that’s the way it is with a lot of gaming groups, which is a bit frustrating.
No, actually, I don’t think it’s exaggerated. In the 11 years I lived in the Front Range, I really didn’t think it had a winter. Sure, you’d have a day or two of cold, or sometimes you’d wake up to a foot of snow, but it was always 60 degrees and sunny a few days later. I didn’t own a heavy coat (at least not one for everyday use - I had a ski parka, but I only wore it skiing) and I didn’t have winter boots. I had to buy all those things when I moved back to a place that had winter.
I’ve heard of that one year where it got really cold, probably the one you describe. But that’s one year, and everyone still talks about it. It’s nothing like the long, dark, cold winters of the Twin Cities. I agree with levdrakon when he said “Winter here is nothing like it was in St. Paul. I’ve lived in the UP and Wisconsin, but that time in St. Paul seemed even colder. It’s mostly January and February though.”
And yeah, I didn’t notice your location. You got the hot, humid summers covered. 
I thought a little more about the Twin Cities versus Denver winters, and I think the key is that a real winter - that is, what the Twin Cities get and Denver doesn’t - does not have a reprieve.
No matter how bad it gets in Denver, it’s always going to be sunny & relatively warm within a week or two, and usually in a day or two. They don’t plow the roads in the Front Range, other than the main thoroughfares. Residential streets never get plowed, at least not in Boulder/Longmont. You don’t need to; the sun will melt the snow soon enough.
In places that get real winter, 'round about this time of year, things start to change. It gets dark because the clouds roll in, and you know it’s gonna be dark until the end of January. Then the cold starts, and soon enough the snow. And you know, sometime in November or December, that the snow has set in and you won’t see any green until April. You need to bundle up to go to the end of the driveway and get your mail - none of this dashing out in your T-Shirt like you get away with in Colorado. Parking your car a couple blocks from where you’re going is painful, because you know that walk is going to be bone-freezing. And you know it’s going to be like this for months; there is no “oh, it’ll be sunny and 60 in a week or so.”
No reprieve. That’s the difference, and that’s what makes a winter a Real Winter and not just a couple weeks o’ cold weather.
Athena, that’s perfect. I remember my three winters in Minnesota, and it wasn’t really the cold that got you (though it WAS cold…the only place I’ve ever lived where it got down to 30 below at least once every year), it was how LONG the unremitting white and gray of snow and slush lasted. There are definitely days in March or April when you just think to yourself “Is this ever going to go away?!”
It isn’t really gaming groups - these are the people we hang out with - this is my bookclub, what our parties look like, who we vacation with, etc…that one of the activities is gaming is secondary to “we have known most of our friends for most of our lives.”
Athena’s absolutely right. My mom was born in and grew up in or near Boulder (I was born there too, but we moved when I was five) and she was astounded by winter in MN/WI. Boulder’s heavily invested in “solar snowplows” (as she calls them); up here, we heavily invest in the real kind. We couldn’t afford not to: everything would shut down should we just wait for it to melt. Mom couldn’t get over the fact that up here, they use plows all the damn time. Because we have to.
As I understand it, really cold days in Boulder/Denver are rare. And a really cold day is under 25ish. A really cold spell is 3 or 4 days of under 25ish. While our really cold spells are also pretty short lived, it can easily hover around 20 here for weeks. It does get cold. And it stays cold. Most of us don’t even think of planting anything until Memorial Day - I planted tomatoes this year around May 19th and was worried that they wouldn’t make it.
The advantage of the cold? Keeps the riff-raff out. Really, I love it here, winters and all.
I lived in/around the Twin Cities (Minneapolis, then St. Louis Park) for a couple years for grad school. I grew up in Wisconsin (east-south-eastern part) so I figured, how bad can the winters be? Well, I won’t say they were hell on earth, but they were pretty damned cold. I wasn’t lucky enough to have a garage or even covered parking, so starting the car could be iffy at times (no plug-in engine heater in my Wisconsin-bought car), and once it was so frigid out that I left my car running in a store parking lot lest it be unable to start back up after I returned. I didn’t worry about it because it was one of those abnormally nastily cold days where it would be dangerous to be outside on foot for long, plus (honest!) about a quarter of the other cars in the lot were running.
Winters last long enough that any break in the weather means everyone is outside, wearing spring-level clothing and playing in the park, running, whatever physical activity they can do.
On Winter - its been a while since I lived anywhere else, but I don’t think its that bad.
There is often not snow on the ground until mid-December, sometimes later. And there is generally a Febuary thaw that lets a little grass appear. So its probably two or three months of blankets of snow. Now, I have seen sticking snow in October, and we’ve have a March snowfall almost every year, but those aren’t generally big deals.
There is a cold snap in January - sometimes Febuary - usually a week, sometimes two (and sometimes two cold snaps) where it is BITTER cold, the rest of the winter it is cold, but not take your breath away when you go outside cold.
So as not to completely hijack the thread with weather, I went to school in Madison, WI, and have spent a lot of time in the Twin Cities - my mother’s side of the family is from there. The area is beautiful in summer and people really take advantage of warm weather. There is always something going on outdoors, as people want to take advantage of the season. The metro area is large and you have everything you could ask for in terms of entertainment, recreation, dining, culture, etc.
So, back to the weather. There are very few places in the continental US that compare with winter in the Twin Cities. Denver is certainly not one of them. Fargo is. Duluth. Green Bay. Madison. Maybe Buffalo, but for a different reason. Even the mountain towns in the Rockies are warmer than MSP. Some valley towns may get colder at night but are warmer during the day.
I loved Madison but could not accept the winters. I had to leave. I suppose everyone gets used to it eventually, but there is a reason why there are so many Minnesotans and Wisconsinites here in CO.
P.S. We go through this every winter, but there is no way that you saw a week of -20 or below in Denver. It’s never happened, not even close. I’ve been here over 20 years and I remember once having two days in a row where the low reached -20, but the high was warmer. You can check the records.
Ay yi yi. I knew that I’d get people playing up the drama of their experience, it’s human nature; I’m sorry I even brought it up.
Okay, it’s been a month. Did you get the job?
I missed this thread, but I was searching for “remote starter” and found it. The University of Faint Promise (Saint Thomas) is my alma mater. I live just south of there in Highland Park (another very safe neighborhood, like Merriam Park). Bike paths are everywhere in this area, and I’ve heard it said that we have the highest number of bike paths per capita in the nation. I bike to work until there is too much snow or it is below 20F. And they keep the paths clean and cleared very well around here. The neighborhoods around Saint Thomas are very nice, it gets a little sketchy on the north side of 94.