That small town feeling

You know I was thinking a bit about what I really crave — that small town feeling, the kind you get when you are in “deep rural” beyond the commuting distance of the nearest big city. Isolated, away from the problems of the big urban city. It’s possible to get “out in the country” and live in a rural area but until your past that 30 mile mark from downtown, it really doesn’t feel particularly special or unique.

The problem with the Albany metropolitan area is it’s an area of 1.1 million people. You have to get pretty far out before you’re not essentially in the suburb of Albany. While you have rural land not too far from the south-east or west, a lot of it is residential commuters back to city until you get pretty far out. It’s suburban housing between the farms and houses for much of the rural areas not far from the city.

I can travel to many of those small towns, and it’s fun to vacation there, but I do wish I could live in a place like one of those little towns. I just need to figure out how to get from where I am now to there, so I can have feeling every day.