Things I miss about the Interior:

• Fruit stands. And gardens. One night at my parents’ house, we ate corn, potatoes, beans, and onions, all from the backyard. It made my little spinach patch look rather pathetic.
• Lakes. They’re just so much better than the ocean. Clear, shark-free (despite my father’s sturgeon stories), cold as frig…
• Potlucks. In a small town, no one stops at Choices and grabs appies on the way to a potluck. They all make these amazing salads and grandma’s coffee cake.
• Grocery shopping with my mom. She knows everyone in the store, and it takes an hour to buy milk. 

Things I don’t miss about the Interior

• Chinese/Western buffets. I swear, as soon as we pass Hope, some sort of reverse psychology takes hold and Min starts craving rice. This leads to us eating in an array of highly sketchy restaurants. And while we haven’t actually gotten food poisoning yet, we’ve had some really, really bad meals. 
• Snow. In August. Okay, we were on top of a mountain, but still… 
• Grocery shopping with my mom. She knows everyone in the store, and it takes an hour to buy milk.