I always tell people the same two answers when they ask where I'm from. I either say, "a small town near Lake Tahoe," or simply, "Lake Tahoe." I'm not from Tahoe though. I live in Pollock Pines, California. No one has any clue where that is. Even the town I spent my time in and really grew up in, Placerville, is barely known. I'd like to tell people that I'm from Placerville, but they'd have no clue where it is on a map.

Here it is.

Many of us have this problem. If we tell the average person where we are actually from, we'll get the expected answer, "Where is that?" So, we usually just pick the nearest nationally known city and say we're from there. Regardless of whether people know where we're from or not, we don't care because we love our little town, and here are the reasons why.

1. You'll have stores that are specific to your town.

Big cities all have the same stores: Hollister, Abercrombie & Fitch, big chain hotels, etc. But small towns always have some store that's specific to the town and its people.

Placerville has this store.

It is a country-western themed store for women, which isn't that uncommon of a store, but it's the name that makes it unique to Placerville.

2. There will be a couple of events throughout a year that seemingly the entire town goes to.

Your town might have an annual Fourth of July or Christmas Parade, or maybe a rodeo, or maybe a seasonal high school game against the neighboring town's team. Placerville has the El Dorado County Fair. The vast majority of the town will show up there at least once.

You might be from a small town if your friends share a picture like this on Facebook.

3. You can't go anywhere without running in to someone.

Chances are, you'll personally know the clerks at your local grocery story, the servers at your favorite restaurant, or the attendant at the gas station. Even if you're just driving or walking around town, you'll generally always see someone you know.

4. It's perfectly normal to see someone ride/drive something that's not a car through town.

Maybe you've see someone riding a horse, or an ATV, or a tractor through town. When you have, you are not surprised or shocked one bit.

Although I would still be mildly surprised to see Brick Tamland riding a "furry tractor."

5. You can almost always identify a tourist.

You know your town and its type of people so well that you can always point out a tourist. For me, it's when someone drives 10 miles under the speed limit on the highway because they're afraid of the windy roads, or they drive way too fast in the snow and generally crash five minutes after they pass me.

6. Going to the nearest big city becomes essential for most shopping.

If I want to do any kind of shopping aside from Walmart or Home Depot, I generally have to drive anywhere from 20 minutes to over an hour away. You have that problem when you live in a small town. You love all your little local stores and restaurants, but if you want anything bigger, you almost always end up making a road trip to the nearest big city.

7. But it's stressful because driving in a big city is way different than your (tops) four-lane highway.

When you're giving directions to somewhere, you never say something like, "Yeah, you take this highway and then get on this freeway and get off on this street and then get on this highway..." When you give directions, you probably give two to three streets, because everything in town is on those two to three streets.

And this?

It probably stresses you the hell out.

8. You probably had a teacher in school who also taught your older siblings or parents.

Everyone's incredibly connected in a small town. You know a bunch of the clerks at your local grocery store, maybe a handful of the local police officers or firefighters and probably most, if not all, of the teachers in your schools. Chances are one of the older teachers taught all of your siblings and maybe even your parents.

I remember on the first day of Health Class in freshman year of high school, Mr. Fairchild asked the class if any of our family members had him as a teacher in the past. Just about everyone, including myself, had a sibling go through his class before, and a handful of the students' parents even had Mr. Fairchild when they were in High School.

9. You can get really bored in your town and love when you get away.

There isn't much to do in your town. Your town might be lucky enough to have a bowling alley, a movie theater, and maybe a couple of parks, but you really don't have all that much to do. That's why leaving for college can be such a huge thing. You're probably leaving everyone you know behind, which means you will always be busy making new friends, and having more than three options of fun things to do on the weekend.

10. But when all is said and done, you love your little town, and ultimately miss it when you're away.

There's something special about being from a small town. Maybe it's the absence of the hustle-and-bustle of city traffic. Maybe it's the absence of smog and the presence of fresh air. Maybe it's the love for how connected you are with everyone in town. Who knows? One thing we all know though is that we love our town and wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.