Originally Posted by: PonyOneyeah, i've been through the middle of the country a few times and i barely touched the south when i took Route 66 from Chicago to LA from Boston. i spent much of my childhood in rural Oregon, a town called Madras in the middle of nowhere. i think the population is around 5k now but when i remember when it was about 2500.

here's a page with all sorts of exciting info on the place... http://www.city-data.com/city/Madras-Oregon.html they even have Ahern's on the front page. WOW. i remember that was the happening place when i was a kid; they had the Rambo arcade machine with the two Uzis and it was only about 10 years old at the time.

you get a lot of people going through due to the 26; lots of people travelling down from Seattle on their way to resorts in the area or Northern California. because of this a lot of new businesses have popped up; there's a brand new, huge Safeway which is kind of surreal. i mean they sell fake meat and chinese food there which is totally nuts. there's even a chinese restaurant there now, which is absolutely mind boggling.

i've had lots of exposure to urbanization and to the rural life; i'll take urbanization, thank you. i drive a lot, and i will go drive out to the middle of nowhere just for the hell of it, i go hiking and i definitely need my solitude, but when it gets right down to it we're social creatures and i need socialization. i like the variety that you get in urban areas.

i've found that a lot of the xenophobia that you get in small towns is because the people there assume that "big city folk" have negative assumptions about them. after they get used to you, you're okay, but the lack of new things happening just kills it for me. i mean, i like knowing that there are millions of people in my general area.

oklahoma was like anywhere else; people didn't seem to like us because our Saab had Massachusetts plates on it and they seemed kind of stand off-ish when we approached them with questions, but, i got a pair of really cool rodeo-style Levi's at this little outlet and the owner was amazed that we had real live parrots with us and that we were headed toward Los Angeles; when he found out i played guitar, he was like "well, wow, maybe someday i'll see you on TV or somethin' and be like 'hey, i sold some jeans to that guy!'" he'd also never seen a Saab before, and thought that because it was European, had a leather interior and a turbo, that it was an "exotic" kind of car.

just cultural differences. i love travelling; if i had the option, i'd spend a lot of time just driving all over North America, and some day, i will drive around Europe. the goal is to either motorcycle around or do it in a little old roadster, like an MG or Triumph of some sort. i'll settle for a rental 1.5l VW TDI though.

The lack of stuff going on does definitely ruin the experience... To this day I laugh when I look at tour dates for my favorite bands and they skip right across OK and go straight for TX. There are some really pretty rural areas... I'll admit... but the solitude gets to everyone's head it seems.

Okies are usually really prideful, or maybe that's the case with any small town, but some, like the man who sold you Levi's, are friendly and more open-minded. That encounter sounds exactly like something an okie would say... that is just hilarious right there. I recently went with my mom on a trip up there to visit family... just in our modest little Mazda 3 we got lots of looks and attention. Late one evening while cusing with the windows down (gotta love windows down cruising, eh?) blaring a little Collective Soul and this ricer rides up and nearly breaks his neck checking it out. I've found that people are less inhibited to walk up and ask you about your car in a smaller town... whereas in a larger urban area they just go on with business.