Why I Love Living in the Country

If you had known me when I was growing up, you would have said I was the last person you could imagine that would end up living in the country. I'd always fancied myself a city girl when I was younger. I dreamed of living in downtown San Francisco, in one of those impossibly skinny townhouses, riding Bart, and fighting the millions of people during the morning commute. Fresh out of college, I resigned myself to living in Portland instead of San Fran, but Portland was still a big city. 

Portland is where I discovered I'm not a city girl. I'm the exact opposite of a city girl. 

Here's why I love living in the country-

-This is my view.

-There is no traffic. I've driven on the main highway before, and only encountered 2-3 cars the entire time I was on it. A "bad" traffic day is one where someone has broke down on the side of the road, and traffic is delayed 2 minutes. There's been ongoing bridge work around here, (resulting in a sometimes-20 minute delay getting into the city)and you would think Rapture was imminent by the way people carry on around here.

-I have no qualms about building a bonfire on our property at 11 pm at night, because there's no neighbor's close enough to care. A very different situation from our last house in Oregon where our neighbor's house was about 15 ft from ours.

I'm crouched in front of our house (our last house in Oregon). Our neighbor's house is the one in the background. Ridiculously close.

-There's room for the dogs to run. I can open my garage door, and just let them run out onto the property. They've got our entire property to roam. We live on a gravel lane, so there's no cars driving by our house to make me worry about the dogs getting hit.

-I love sitting on our front porch at dusk, and seeing a herd of deer traveling across the field by our house.

-It's so quiet. No neighbor's arguing, being obnoxious, or having parties. No hearing babies crying, or little kid's fighting. At night, you can hear the bugs humming and the frog's in the creek.

-There's no light from a city to interfere with your view of the stars at night.

-Shopping at most anytime of the day is like going to the store in a big city at 3 am. There's no one there. It's fabulous. Same goes for the restaurants.

-It's ok to drive on the road by our house on a four-wheeler. Or a horse. Or a tractor. Or a segue-way.

-Everyone knows from "The Walking Dead" that cities will fall first in a zombie apocalypse. It will take longer for the zombies to spread out to the rural areas, giving us precious time for a plan of recourse.

-Everyone knows everyone.

And a few reasons why I don't like living in the country-

-Everyone knows everyone.

-There's no place to buy fresh fish within 2.5 hours. Same goes for Whole Foods. And Chipotle. And Bed Bath and Beyond. And Trader Joe's. The list is endless.

-Mountain Lions. Coyotes. Snakes. HUGE bees.