Hills Iowa

Here are some facts that I have learned about Hills and the things we are doing in Hills right now.

Garbage- The garbage here blows my mind. Kevin will probably laugh that I am even writing about this, because he thinks I am getting hung up on the garbage thing. But they don’t do regular garbage here. You have two options, the first option is to but lots of stickers that cost $1.25 each. Once you fill up a garbage bag, then you put a sticker on it. On garbage day, you just stick your bags on the curb and the garbage man will come pick them up if they have stickers on them. Or you can buy one sticker for like $250 and put it on a garbage can that you buy. And then you can fill up that garbage can, and each week they will pick up your garbage can. We are now proud owners of a garbage can. In the end, Kevin bought a big dumpster for the office, and we are just taking our garbage over there. Then I don’t have to worry about stickers or things like that. Ha ha.

Bike riders- There are a bunch of people that ride road bikes here. The road right next to our house is one of the main “biking trail” roads. It has kind of been run to see people riding their bikes around. It kind of makes me want to get a bike trailer and start riding a bike as well. I guess we will see if that ever happens, but it is kind of fun to see so many riders.

Book Mobile- There is no library in the city of Hills. We have access to the Iowa City library, which is probably 10-15 minutes away. It is actually a great library, although I now need to research the books that I think I might like to read before I go to the library. It is harder to just pick one off the shelf. (No LDS authors here) and some books are too much for me. But the library does send a book mobile down to Hills every Tuesday. The kids have loved it so far! I need to just start requesting the books I want to read to be put on the bookmobile, and then we can go and pick them up there and still pick our books from the book mobile.

Internet- All of the choices for Internet in Hills are so expensive. We are only 6 miles outside of Iowa City, but hardly any regular companies cover here.

Rain- Since we have moved here, it has rained almost every single day or night. I am not even exaggerating. And it is not just a little sprinkle. It is a full on thunder storm that has pounding rain. I can hardly even sleep through it because it scares me a little bit. I am just glad that the kids seem to sleep through it pretty well. 

Rumble strips- Right outside our house is a fairly busy road, and on that road there are some rumble strips that warn the driver that a stop sign is coming up. It isn't too bad during the day. The noise it makes just melds into all the background noise, but at night and in the morning when I am sleeping, It seems to be so loud to me. What are people doing driving around at 3 AM anyway? 

Well, that is the first impression of what Hills, IA has to offer. We hope to settle in here, despite the funny way they pick up garbage.