This Wasn’t Very Iowa Nice

I can't believe these Iowans did this to me. I was completely blocked out of my driveway when I got home from work the other day!

When I first moved here from Minnesota all I heard about was Iowa nice and how kind Iowans are. I wanted to do some research on exactly what Iowa nice means.

After a quick google search, Iowa nice is

"a cultural label used to describe the stereotypical attitudes and behaviors of residents within the U.S. state of Iowa, particularly in terms of the friendly agreeableness and emotional trust shown by individuals who are otherwise strangers."

When I got home I couldn't get into my driveway and I had to park at end of the block. First-world problems, I know, but I found myself stuck in a pretty inconvenient situation.

Have you ever lived in a spot where you need to use an alley to park? I really like it for the most part.

You don't have to shovel a huge driveway when it snows, the garbage and recycling cans are out of sight. They don't show up in front of everyone's house which can be a bit unattractive, and access to the garage is great.

You can take the alley and have your cars out in the back of your house instead of out front. Once again, an out of sight kind of thing that I enjoy.

You can find yourself in some interesting situations that can be inconvenient. If someone is driving toward you, you have to be pretty careful and sneak around each other, and it can be a pretty small squeeze.

There can be a lot of stray animals or outdoor cats. These don't really bother me at all but I do worry about accidentally hitting one of them.

You might not think this but alleys are kind of busy places. There always seems to be someone walking down mine, taking a shortcut to get to the other street. This is another situation that doesn't really bother me, I just don't want to hit anyone.

The guys who were working in the alley and blocked me out of the driveway were really cool. This wasn't that big of a deal at all. Iowa nice wins again!

They were working on something in the alley and parked the trailer to go on their lunch break. When they got back and realized they had blocked me from my driveway they were really apologetic. They moved the trailer and let me get into my garage.

Shoutout to those two Iowans for showing me once again, Iowa nice might be a real thing.