Reminiscing Pagosa Springs.

I was reading a friend's profile page today on Facebook. She belongs to a Facebook group called, "I'm from a small town you've never heard of."

Since we're from the same town, I decided to click on the group to see what it had to say. It shares a "you know you're from a small town if..." list. As I read the list, I couldn't help but giggle at how many of those are, in fact, true to our small town.

When I was 14 (just as I was about to enter high school), my parents moved our family from Anaheim, California (population 300,000) to Pagosa Springs, Colorado (population 5,000). Now, Pagosa Springs has doubled in size (and went from having one stop-light to having... *gasp*... SIX)! It still, of course, has that "small town" feel, and I love that everywhere I go, I run into someone I know.

And back to that list on Facebook... it got me reminiscing, and here are a few things that were true about my town, and I love to giggle about.

1. I can name just about everyone I graduated with (there were 94 in my class).

2. I've been to a party 20 miles down a deserted dirt road.

3. Heck, I *lived* down a deserted dirt road, and it took me 25 minutes to get to school.

4. I don't think there is anywere in town that has a speed limit of over 40. It's mostly 25 mph.

5. I still love to go back and visit my high school to see my former teachers (the ones who haven't retired... I did graduate ten years ago) when I'm in town.

6. I thought people who lived in big cities dressed funny... and I then would wear those "trends" two years after I first saw them.

7. If I was looking for a friend or family member and couldn't get them on the phone (*nobody* I knew had a cell phone), I would actually drive around town looking to find their cars in parking lots of their favorite places. :)

8. EVERYONE in town has a phone number that begins with either "731" or "264." When asking a friend for a phone number, only the last four numbers are given. Which side of Pizza Hut (now some outdoor outfitting store) you lived (east or west) depends on the prefix of the number. I STILL say things like, "Okay, so they live on the EAST side of Pizza Hut... that means their number starts with '264'!" LOL.

9. When we first moved there, there was only one grocery store... City Market. After we lived there a year or two, they built another one on the opposite side of town... still (some 12 or so years later), locals affectionately refer to the stores as "The Old City Market" and "The New City Market" respectively.

*Photo, taken by my dad (I think...), is of Snow Wolf Lodge, the Christian Camp my family lived and worked for all four years I was in high school.