Des Moines Chat Thread (2014, home, live in)

[atler8]

Don't know whether the most appropriate 1 word response I'd choose for here would be "Wow!" or "meh...".
With those "All" & "Everyone's" here, there is certainly a lot of broad brush stroke painting going on.
I've lived abroad & in 3 states & could hardly disagree more w/ almost every aspect of the contribution @ 10:08.
Just joined a minute ago to say all of that too, eh?

[Tek_Freek]

"If I'd done a travel survey" says everything we need to know.

[Meemur]

It's a "meh" from me. I just got back from a quick business trip to Columbus, OH. I waited until late Sunday to leave to avoid the worst of the holiday traffic.

Restaurant and store service was much more polite in IA and S. IL. The folks were more laid back and took time to hold doors open for others and not cut people off on the roads. IN and OH were full of pre-occupied drivers and some rudeness in the restaurants. No road rage but there was a lot of tailgating east of Indy.

I'm glad to be home! Both I-80 and I-74 have multi-mile construction projects. If I'd had more time, I would've stuck to state routes.

[fezzador]

Originally Posted by Tek_Freek

"If I'd done a travel survey" says everything we need to know.

Looks like another one-post wonder. It's not every day someone joins C-D to ***** exclusively about little ole Des Moines.

[Tek_Freek]

You have to admit it's weird.

[Tek_Freek]

Originally Posted by Tek_Freek

It's like having a mild winter. Horse < gift < mouth < not.

Strange here. Las Vegas set records for number of days over 100, over 105, and reaching 110 in June. So far July has been beautiful. Last night it was 91 degrees. We sat on the patio with a cool (seriously!) breeze and thoroughly enjoyed it. In Iowa with the humidity it would have sucked.

This is taking some getting used to.

[atler8]

Living in Georgia I understand the summer humidity thing... 91 on a summer evening in Las Vegas with low humidity would have eventually felt fairly pleasant to me once the sun had gone down. For me personally, the direct sun can be a deal breaker in the comfort equation.
The humidity is almost non-stop down here in Georgia during the summer, except for occasional delightful breaks & is subject to a variance that sometimes surprises me even after 35 years of dealing with it. But with Iowa, on the one hand because of where it's located, there is a much better chance that with the more prevalent mixing of passing fronts in that region of the country, that it can be pleasantly cool. Yes of course, on the other hand, it can be under the influence of a hot and humid air mass. It's just so varied so as to defy a single, all encompassing descriptive word & that includes "humid".
A case in point was the temperature variation in Des Moines yesterday which ranged from a high of 81 down to a low of 58. Imho, if the low drops down to a cool 58 on a summer evening in Des Moines, it's going to be classified as a super delightful evening & call for the wearing of at least a sweater. When temps fall that low there in the summer, it's usually the result of a dry air mass in place so the humidity stereotype becomes basically a non-factor.
Just to the east of Iowa, my brother in Wisconsin has been expecting a hot spell all spring/summer but any heat there has been fleeting & unable to gain more than a brief toe-hold. So far this month, his coolest low has been 50.
I recall once my dad had moved to the southwest, no matter where I was living, he would almost always begin a summer phone chat with the line, "How's the humidity?" Nowadays it's a cute memory of my dad but back then I saw it as more of a fixation of his mindset that the humidity anywhere outside of the west just had to always be bad, which I've found is simply not the case.

[majorcyfan]

People with attitudes will never be happy anywhere they go. wonder why this tunnel vision person moved from or why they had to move to terrible DM iowa. This person never has been to New York city I bet. not a generaliztion on every person in New York but Iowa could be called an oasis of friendlyness compared to New York city. Been there, done that

[fezzador]

Originally Posted by Tek_Freek

You have to admit it's weird.

What's also weird is that it's a generic, cookie-cutter response that probably could be used to describe any city.
Just a hunch, he/she has probably never even been to DSM.

[ElleTea]

People in Phoenix have been complaining about how humid it's been lately. At about 25%. I like to show them this pic from a Des Moines summer evening a couple of years ago