Small Town America

There is something about small town America that just screams my name. I know what you're thinking. Why isn't my name Charleene or Rosanne and quite frankly I ask myself that a lot especially when traveling to and through small town America. I think small towns in America are all completely unique while also being exact cookie cutters of each other. A paradox you ask? Why yes it is. Yes it is.

This past week I was lucky enough to accompany my buddy Gina on such an excursion to small town Arizona. She had the opportunity to play college volleyball at EAC (the Gila Monsters...and yes all you Idahoans the 'G' is silent. It sounds like Hila Monster...in fact I am thinking of silencing all "G's" from here on out.) So me and Hina took a road trip to Thatcher, Arizona so she could play in an Alumni game. Since Thatcher is about three hours away she invited me to be her comic relief for the trip. Plus she knows I am a sucker for small towns and she wanted to show me the ins and outs of Thatcher. No road trip is complete without the frosty beverage and what better place to get one but the beverage stop of the USA...that is right-Sonic.

So we were off after a lovely self portrait of course.

Half the fun of going somewhere is getting there if you ask me. I just sounded a bit like Confucius. The trip to Thatcher was actually quite scenic...I was going to say beautiful but that word has really been overused if you ask me. It was a nice overcast day making the drive divine. This is in Superior, AZ and the second I saw this sign I said "Oh Cooper!!" thinking in my head about the hound dog on Fox and the Hound. Well, we can all see it is Copper and I prove again how much I love still paying for my student loans.

The highlight for me on the trip down was the stop in Top of the World, AZ. No joke. That is the name of the town. I immediately loved it. The air is fresher, the climate cooler, and the people white trashier. In this picture I made Gina look up so now she can say I looked up at the top of the world. Then we had a Titanic moment until we realized that "Jack" says he is 'King of the World' not 'On Top of the World'. The mood was ruined so I let go of Gina after we were pretend flying on the locomotive you see in the picture below. It was a little awkward....not gonna lie.

Then we noticed this sign....

And the man inside the garage behind us saw us see the sign and whip out our camera. This man looked like Santa Claus after rehab and screams out to us "WE GOT T-SHIRTS FOR SALE!" in that hick accent (I will get to that) that so many small towners have. Of course we ask how much hoping for the best and when he replied "TWENTY BUCKS" we roger rabbitted right out of there. So the hick accent. How did this happen? Did the south somehow infiltrate every single small town in America? I have known quite a few people in the Northwest as well as the Southwest that have these crazy sounding southern accents. When I ask them where they are from expecting some answer like Alabama, Kentucky, or Georgia I am SHOCKED when they say something like-Rigby, Idaho-Snowflake, AZ-or Pendleton, OR. Why then pray tell are you speaking in a thick southern accent? I get that we all have some sort of regional dialect but I promise half of the south didn't move into these small towns in america. I have one thing to blame. Country music. Ponder.

Speaking of the South, I found this gem and had to get a pic. I didn't know that people from the Top of the World, AZ were Arkansas Razorback fans. Who woulda known?

So then we stopped to get some lunch at the burger barn Gilbert. I can't remember what the name of this place was but it was a Mexican joint that also made a killer burger. And that is when this happened.

And yes ladies and gents, that is a woman. HEYO!

I grew up in somewhat of an Enigma of a town. When we moved to Eagle, Idaho in 1986 the town had about 1,000 souls. It was a small town for sure. Here is the thing though...it is a suburb to Boise which is of course the capital of the state and the largest city. So I had the best of both worlds. I could still hop on my bike and go to the drug store and buy candy cigarettes and fire jolly rancher sticks but if my mom (or Teresa) wanted to take me to the zoo or museums it was only a 20 minute drive. So when I am traveling through these small towns that aren't very close to anything of a metropolis I ask myself a few questions. The first one that comes to my mind is what the heck do you do out here for fun? I am sure lighting the interstate on fire or sitting for an entire day in the apple tree eating unripened apples and then crapping your pants would be fun for a little bit (sorry Ross) but then what? Then I notice how everyone of these small towns have a high school and on that property is a football field. That is one thing I LOVE so much about small towns. The whole town comes out to football games, basketball games, and other high school functions. That stuff is golden.

So Thatcher is a lot like that. It reminds me a lot of Rexburg (back in the days of Ricks College) but not hilly, cold, windy, and way more black people on the football team. The whole town lives for EAC and it is wonderful. So Gina pretty much dominated in the Alumni game and I was thoroughly entertained. I have never seen college volleyball live so I had a rad time. After the game we went to the football scrimmage and then got fed by the college. I had a chili dog which got burped up the entire way back home. Sick.

To get to and from Thatcher you have to travel across a HUGE indian reservation or as we say from the last posting-the rez. A few years ago the government had to go and instal a chain link fence on both sides of the highway because drunk indians kept wandering out into the road and would get plowed over by cars. Needless to say the entire distance on the rez my eyes were wider than a ten year olds on christmas morning. I was getting ready to shriek if I saw anything that resembled a human. I accidently did scream when I saw a saguaro and thought it was a man holding two six shooters in his hand. My bad. We had so much fun in Thatcher that we forgot to take anymore pictures. But trust me...they would've been good.

In the end, I had a right good time with Gina and I loved Thatcher and all the towns in between. But I do have to say....I also love Target and the fact that it is two minutes from my house. How is that for a paradox. BURN!