Growing up in a town that has more cows than people brings its pros and cons. Pro: learning to drive was easy because the whole town is one long straight road. Con: That one long straight road consists of a package store, a gas station, 300 farms, a pizza place, and not a whole lot else. While having to drive 25 miles to get to the nearest shopping mall is definitely added to that ‘cons’ list, having one big close-knit community makes up for it all

1. When people ask where you’re from you just list off the nearest well-known city rather than the town you’re actually from to avoid that dazed and confused look.

2. You knew not only everybody in your graduating class but everyone in the whole school.

3. ...And their families.

4. Mostly because you’ve been the same school system with them since kindergarten.

5. Which meant getting a new kid was a huge deal.

6. Seeing so many lanes, and so much traffic while driving through large cities is always astonishing.

7. You know what FFA stands for.

8. You wait all year for the local fair/festival

9. The only fun thing to do is drive around blasting music seeing how many stoplights you can make it through until the light turns red (just about 3 because that’s how many there are in the whole town.

10. It’s at least a 30-minute drive to get to Anything. Movie theater? 30-minute drive. Nearest fast food chain? 30-minute drive. Civilization? 30-minute drive.

11. Everyone knows everything about everyone.

12. You can’t leave your house without seeing just about everyone and their mother (literally and figuratively).

13. Everyone talks about how they can’t wait to leave but the truth is for such a small town there is so much to miss.