Country vs. City

We are in the country but not... I think we live rurally compared to the suburbs or downtown areas in Denver or Ft. Collins or even places in the Midwest like Omaha, Ne where I grew up or Rock Island, IL where Furry Husband grew up.

We live on a dirt road vs. concrete. There are no street lights on our road. A walk around our block is 3 miles vs. a city block paved by sidewalks. We hear coyotes and foxes at night and we know there is a mountain lion in the area.

I know compared to others, I don't live rurally at all..... our house is within shoutin' distance of our neighbors. We can see all of our neighbor's houses... it's not as if we live on hundreds of acres where we don't see people for days and we'd have to drive an hour or more just to reach a grocery store.


That being said, when we left our house last night to head over to Tom and Laurie's place for dinner and visitin', we saw something that I would consider "country".

There were two teenage girls leading their black Angus beef cows down the road. I'm assuming the steers were 4-H projects for the Larimer County Fair which is right around the corner - July 25 through August 5.

Furry Husband and I were laughing about seeing cows out for a walk... we slowed down once we were alongside the girls and their steers. I shouted, "Hey, do you need a ride? Cuz we could just put those guys in the back..." They laughed and waved at our polka-dotted station wagon and we continued on our way.

As we turned the corner, there was a cowboy with a long handle-bar mustache on his stout, sorrel horse in Western gear and he was ponying along another horse.

Ya wouldn't see either of those things on the 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver.... or on 72nd and Blondo St. in Omaha... or in Old Town, Ft. Collins.