Do we like Winona, MN?

So many people have asked us how we like Winona. We will try and answer that during this post with a careful listing of pros and cons.
Pros:
Bloedow's Bakery - cheap pastries and a regular doughnut sale (4 for $1)!! - yummy
Farmer's Market two times a week - cheap/fresh seasonal produce and flowers
Scenery - Mississippi river, lakes, bluff valley, lots of trees - great fall colors
Small town - pretty peaceful all around
Culture - Shakespeare festival (largest Shakespeare festival in MN) every summer plus all the events that come to the three colleges in the town (Russian National Ballet in January - Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty [yes, we will probably go])
Friendly Branch - the people in the branch are very nice - problem is they keep moving away
University - I (Derik) get a lot of individual attention in my grad program - always a plus
Gas - gas is about 60 cents cheaper than in Rexburg right now (We're at 2.79 a gallon)

Cons:
f00d - most places in town require the customers to be drunk before they can start to enjoy the food (we have both bar & grills AND pub & grilles)
parallel parking - everywhere and nothing but (to get a parking permit for campus starts at $90 and goes to $185 - I walk)
Strangers - yep, we're new. Can't say that we know a lot of people - yet. No family in town to soften the transition.
Bugs - little flying gnat things. They're everywhere! All the locals say that the bugs were unusual this year - we shall see.
Scenery - our bedroom window stares at a lit billboard. At least it changes monthly.

unknowns:
Community activities - there are several free fairs and concerts in the park during the summer - but who do those events attract?
Museums - there are a lot of museums in the town and we have been to none of them - yet
Stained glass workshops - the city is billed as the stained glass capital of the US with several functioning stained glass workshops in the city; we haven't been to any of them - yet.

Neutrals:
Apartment: big, cheap, good location (next to target, walmart, a bookstore, a fabric store, a fresh produce stand in our back yard, a park/lake across the street, and a hospital) but lots of unsupervised children and teens (it gets loud), noise (right next to a busy road), and poor location (hospital with ambulance sirens - a lot of them [the girls are starting to imitate them], one bar and two liquor shops close by, and a lake [small kids - large body of water - you put it together])

Now that we have weighed all of the evidence, the final verdict is: Positive over all.