Exploration

So, we took a drive in the country yesterday. In our new home, this isn't that difficult to accomplish. Take two lefts, and then at the "T", take a right. After about, oh, 100 yards, poof! Country!

I had wanted to see where this road led for a while...if you take it in the other direction, as I do a million times a week, you head into town. But I'd never gone past the few houses that you can see from the intersection where we turn to get to our house. So yesterday my wonderful husband humored me and took me on a drive.

Seriously, it was 3 minutes, maybe? and we were in the middle of farms. I'd heard that our current home state has people living on only 5% of the land. The other 95%? Agriculture and farms. After our drive yesterday, I completely believe it. I also learned last week that the population of the county we lived in for the past 2.5 years (Back East, as they say here...and yes, it is capitalized) is now around 1 million. That is 1/3 of the population of our new home state. I never thought I would love living in a rural state as much as I do. I love driving past the fields, seeing who has started the spring burn, which farms have their cows and hogs out, which farmhouses have been remodeled...

Of course, our lovely drive in the country led us in a big circle, until we ended up at our local mall, where we indulged in a Sunday lunch at a large chain restaurant. So it's not like we live in the middle of nowhere...it's just that the country? Is a lot closer here than it's ever been for me. And I really, really love it.