88 Illini: #36-#33

These are the first weather days since we moved here where the weather absolutely feels like St. Louis. The thing about the mid-Mississippi valley (where St. Louis is located) is that the dampness just settles. There's not much wind.

You can even see it on a topographic map. All of the rivers curl around and converge in this one little flat valley where warm air coming up from the gulf kind of settles in:

If Chicago is the Windy City, St. Louis is the Valley That Wind Forgot. I spent my whole life hoping for a breeze – any kind of breeze – to move some of the damp air around. Louisiana is the same principle (moist gulf air settled into a valley), but in Louisiana in July you expect it. It's the trade-off for winter warmth. Once you get as far north as St. Louis, however, you hope that the humidity and heat would dissipate. But St. Louis is the last stop on the summer gulf humidity express.