The road stretched out, stubbly, naked cornfields as far as the eye could see. Brown barely turning green, watertowers and grain co-ops looming like lighthouses, announcing one small town after another: a billboard blared “Real Men Love Babies,” a ball field, a convenience store, an intersection, a two block mainstreet with barren, boarded-up storefronts, a shuttered bar, a milk-colored church, a hand-lettered Pancake breakfast sign stuck in the ground. Flat land, rolling hills, trees bent in the wind, leaves just about to pop, early daffodils and tulips struggled to stay upright. Town after town, farm after farm, horizon dotted with implement dealers, “Jesus Saves,” “Trump 2020” signs on barns, not a soul outside. The sun was high and bright, and the wind was fierce. So I kept on driving, not even knowing I was lost.
Ha! Love that last line. As someone who likes to take what my dad always called "short cuts" through the countryside, I can understand sometimes not knowing where you are. And with all the closings in small towns now days, one small town may look a lot like another.