Newsflash! I am not a country gal!

Ok, I know you all knew this, but in case any of you wondered, I am not. It is now completely official. I had the great opportunity to go to North Carolina this past week to visit Mitch's family. He has a grandma, aunt, uncles, cousins, parents, brother, sister-in-law, niece, and nephew that live there. His brother's family lives in Chapel Hill and is attending maxiofacial radiology (hope that's right) school, but the rest of the family I mentioned lives out on farm about 2 hours from the airport. I refer to places like that as "the boonies." I have to start out by saying that there is one really good reason for being a country gal (at least in North Carolina). The people there are SOOOO incredibly nice. Holy cow, you wouldn't believe it. They are amazing and I love their accents! Ok, besides that, yeah, I think I'll stick with the city.

Here are a few things that made me say, um, the country isn't for me.

#5 Mitch's mom picked us up from the airport with this terrible rash all over her legs. It was poison ivy. She said she got it from going in the ditch. I thought to myself, oh, I bet the ditch is far away, I don't need to worry. No, the ditch was right in front of their house.
#4 We pull up to the house and his mom says, now be careful, that's an electric fence and it could knock your kids out.
#3 I was excited for my kids to play with the pigs and other animals. The pigs had to have been over a 1,000 lbs and looked like hippos. Then I was told that some prisoners admitted that they would throw some of their victims to the pigs because they ate everything, including the bones. I decided my kids would not be playing with the pigs.
#2 Creighton and Jackson got eggs from the hens. Mary said I needed to make sure I washed their hands really good. I think it was too late because Creighton was throwing up all over the next day.
#1 The dogs. I had some of my scariest moments of my life in that little town while running. After not running all week, I had to run a long run on Saturday. Mitch agreed to get up and run with me, since I was a little nervous to run by myself. I am SOOOO thankful he did. I think that if he would not have, I would be writing this from a hospital bed (Ok, that's a little dramatic). Mitch's mom mentioned there was a dog at the end of their road. I asked if I should be worried, but she said I was going early enough that he wouldn't be out, so I wasn't worried. Yes, I should have been. There was not 1 dog at the end of their road. There were 4. Along with about 15 others throughout my run. They all would bark and run after us. I am terrified of dogs, but Mitch protected me. He just glared at them and they eventually backed down. (He's so tough :)) We even noticed 1/2 way through our run that there was a man walking his little dog and he had a giant stick. Where was our protection? Did you know you have to run with protection? It was too late. We had an ANGEL dog come to protect us, however. This one dog ran up to us, but unlike the others, he was wagging his tail. He was a good dog and ran with us the rest of the way and even almost got in a brutal fight to protect us. I wish I would have taken a picture. Mitch was walking on the side of the country road, shirt off (his shirt was completely drenched after 2 miles because of the nasty humidity) with this dog. When he becomes some fancy smancy lawyer, I would have loved to have a picture of that to put in his office. Anyway, Mitch and I were talking about this after our run. I don't think anyone there runs or bikes or anything. They don't have any shoulders on their roads to do this. And if you try, the dogs will kill you. For that reason alone, I am staying in the city. Dogs and I don't mix.

Side note: Please know that this post is not to offend any of you country folk. I know some love it. I just found it wasn't for me.