Abandoned roads don't always equal cornfield roads. Just saying. They can abandon them to the people who live on them and have them maintain them if they want to.
What do you miss/appreciate about Iowa?
- Thread starter RezClone
- Start date
Starting so far north, we only cut through the furthest NE corner of WY. I-90 from Seattle to just past Billings, then Hwy 212 from there to Belle Fourche SD, then Hwy 34 to Sturgis SD.
That stretch from Billings to Sturgis is the most desolate, isolated stretch of road ever. There is one place in between to get gas (Broadus MT) and if you miss it you're in a world of hurt. It's about 300 miles so easy to do on a single tank of gas, but if you don't top off before you get there you'd best have comfy shoes.
This has definitely changed recently. At least in and around DSM. Courses are super crowded and it’s expensive (especially when you consider the quality of most courses)
I've only been out of Iowa for a couple years, but that's certainly enough time to notice some of the things I miss (echos many other's):
-Iowa specific foods - A&E, Casey's breakfast pizza, Tasty Tacos and Pancheros are must haves when I'm back
-Proximity to family, friends and ISU games
-How green everything is (especially compared to where I live now in UT)
-Lack of people, traffic and air pollution
-The bike trails - Des Moines specifically has an awesome bike trail system that I would kill to have in SLC
I'm glad we moved away, and am not sure if/when we'll move back, but that's one of the silver linings of leaving. You definitely come to appreciate those simple pleasures that you once took for granted. Iowa isn't perfect, but it was a great place to grow up and I wouldn't have traded my years at ISU for anywhere else.
-Iowa specific foods - A&E, Casey's breakfast pizza, Tasty Tacos and Pancheros are must haves when I'm back
-Proximity to family, friends and ISU games
-How green everything is (especially compared to where I live now in UT)
-Lack of people, traffic and air pollution
-The bike trails - Des Moines specifically has an awesome bike trail system that I would kill to have in SLC
I'm glad we moved away, and am not sure if/when we'll move back, but that's one of the silver linings of leaving. You definitely come to appreciate those simple pleasures that you once took for granted. Iowa isn't perfect, but it was a great place to grow up and I wouldn't have traded my years at ISU for anywhere else.
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Des Moines must have gotten better than I remember it on bike trails. Jordan river trail was awesome and you could take frontrunner back to town if you wanted. Ride up City creek canyon straight from downtown, or big/little cottonwood. Or dirt trails around the Wasatch. Felt like a LOT more bike infrastructure in SLC.
Brown Deer in Coralville is my go-to course when I'm back in Iowa. It's rarely very crowded when I play there, though I do tend to take PTO and play during the day on a weekday (mostly to save a little extra money). But it's a really nice, fun course and pretty reasonably priced one, at that. Weekdays for 18 and a cart comes out to $47, tack on $7 more if you're playing Sat/Sun.
SLC is about as good as it gets for mountain biking and biking in the canyons, but I use bike trails primarily for distance running. The JRT is nice, but has very little trails that lead to it, and is pretty far west of the city.
Des Moines has true isolated bike trails (not just bike lanes) that can get you about anywhere in the metro, with many bars and breweries a stones throw away. I was back in Des Moines a few weeks ago a did a 20 mile run for marathon training all on bike trails and hardly saw any other people. In SLC I find myself constantly dodging past bikers, runners and homeless people on the bike trails, and they are rarely connected without having to cross busy roads.
I don’t think that’s true.
1) We farm in Minnesota too, and that’s the general rule there too
2) There are large chunks of Iowa (look at maps of Allamakee, Clayton, Dubuque, or Winneshiek Counties) that don’t conform due to geography.
I can handle the cold of January. It’s that extra full month of February that gets me every time. It never starts warming up until March.
Never seen a road abandoned that someone lives on. If the county considers it a road it is illegal for anyone else to maintain it in anyway. I was at a supervisors meeting where snow removal was discussed, myself and another mentioned that we would move snow as needed on a small tract of level Bs to get to a place and the supervisors said it was against the law.
Most farmers will reclaim the farm ground if given the chance.
Yep, Minnesota laid out that way in the southern 1/2 and whole length of western border. Lots of other places in the US laid out that way as well. It’s not just an Iowa thing but wherever productive soil exists that could be made into 640 acre sections because the topography allowed for it.
And like you said there are plenty of areas of Iowa it doesn’t happen. Far NE, far WC in Loess Hills, parts of southern Iowa.
I was going to say the farming area's of Kansas were the same way, at least east of Wichita it was. Makes certain flight training ground reference maneuvers much easier!
Yeah, like I said earlier, I've traveled through quite a bit of Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and the Dakotas, and the row crop intensive parts of those states, it's 640 acre sections with roads (usually) all around.
That last slice usually gets cut up into smaller pieces so everyone gets one more piece.
I moved up in December. It might be different if I were living down in Seattle, but even when it's cloudy and raining, it's still rather dramatic around here (especially since I'm working up near Concrete). The weather the past couple of weeks has just been amazing.
Yep. I think part of it is nostalgia. They do hit differently, but both are quite enjoyable.
Been in NJ about 17 years now after first 33 in IA. Have also traveled for work a ton, so have done several month long stints in many different locations.
Food: IA: Casey's pizza (taco pizza in general), Maid-rites, Breaded pork tenderloin
Family: Well, some of them.
Weather: Thunderstorms, being able to see the stars. Do not miss humidity in summer and long winters.
Recreation: ISU games, state parks, cheap golf
I agree with some others that the 'niceness' in IA is overrated. Surprisingly, I think NJ folks are just as welcoming if not more. Also driving, despite popular belief, NJ drivers are much better. We HAVE to be because there is so much more traffic. IA drivers act like there is no one else on the road.
Food: IA: Casey's pizza (taco pizza in general), Maid-rites, Breaded pork tenderloin
Family: Well, some of them.
Weather: Thunderstorms, being able to see the stars. Do not miss humidity in summer and long winters.
Recreation: ISU games, state parks, cheap golf
I agree with some others that the 'niceness' in IA is overrated. Surprisingly, I think NJ folks are just as welcoming if not more. Also driving, despite popular belief, NJ drivers are much better. We HAVE to be because there is so much more traffic. IA drivers act like there is no one else on the road.
