Favorite Parts

I have lived in Iowa for 13 years now, pretty incredible given I normal move across the country every 3-5 years on average.  In my time in Iowa I have grown to love many things... Iowa Football/ tailgating, tulips in the spring, leaves changing colors in the fall, but there are a few 'other' things that really top my list of reasons to never leave.  Feet and feet of snow every winter is up there, horrendously high pollen counts which make my eyes want to jump out of my body, eh close to the tops,or maybe it's the ever-present smell of cow manure that wafts in from some farm who knows how far away. 

Even with all those glorious things to choose from, I'd have to say that above all else, WIND is my absolute favorite part of Iowa.  Now we are not talking a nice cool breeze on a summer night, we are talking about the 95 mile per hours blasts of air that dang near rip your car door off, yes, those are my favorite.  And how lucky am I that we get to experience these lovely winds about 360 out of 365 days a year  :)  When I first moved to Iowa I often thought, man, Iowans must just not care what they look like when they go out in public because everyone's hair was a mess and they looked like they had just blown in on some tumble weed.  Little did I know, that it truly wasn't their fault for looking so forlorn, it was just a state of being here in Iowa.  Why bother doing your hair when the second you walk outside it's going to blow over your face in a giant whirl of knots and tangles?

Last night was just another classic example of why I love Iowa's wind.  The wind must have blown a powerline over, because we lost electricity and Tim and I spend the majority of the night swearing at our damn sump pump alarm, which God love it, beeps every 3 seconds when it doesn't have electricity.  I get that if it were flooding we'd need to be notified if the dang thing wasn't going to work, but really, every 3 seconds.  Then there was the lovely sound of our deck furniture and of course Graham's Little Tikes toys flying around the backyard and beating our fence... ahh, a such a peaceful nights rest.  The kicker was to wake up this morning and find that the wind had blown our grill cover off the grill.  The cover, that was velcroed to the bottom of the grill, was laying in the far back corner of our yard.  Really?  What kind of wind can honestly take off a grill cover?  So yes, above all else, WIND is for sure my favorite part of Iowa  :)