Well I do kinda live near people, but not many haha. Maybe 15 thousand or 20 thousand in a 40 mile radius.
And that chicken restaurant there...it's like Mamma's chicken or something dumb like that, it's not that good. It could be because I like more Southern type chicken (Popeye's, Bojangles [which I don't think is in the West], Church's Chicken, etc.). Not only that, but they overcharge like a mother at that place, which is just like every other tourist trap you can think of.
As as for the Iowa storms, I'm from SC. I only moved out here to California in December of 2012 (a very very long drive). I'm used to the rain and storms and it's completely different out here. Since I live in the Mojave desert, the only real time we get storms is in the summer. Other than that, nada.