What to do When You're Truly in the Middle of Nowhere

So first, I am going to go on a bit of a rant here. Me and my husband were living in Wichita Falls, Texas for a few months because of his job. While we were there, we heard so many people complain about how the city is in the middle of no where and that there is nothing to do. Now, Wichita Falls is not a small city by any means. Sure it is not as big as the city that I grew up in, but I am from the east coast so that is no surprise. There is, however, every store you could ever possibly need to go to within a 10-15 minute drive. There are also tons of restaurants, both local start ups and big franchises. You can go to parks, do mini golf, bounce your heart out at the trampoline place or shop till you drop at the mall. I will admit that cell service can be a little bit spotty in some parts of the city, but it is certainly not nowhere.

Now, let me introduce you to a state called New Mexico. Some of you may even be from this state. God bless all of your souls (just kidding lol). Me and my husband are now living here in a town called Alamogordo for a couple months for, you guessed it, his job. The drive here from Texas was boring at best. There were no trees, but plenty of cacti and rocks, sand, cattle ranches, and the random coyote walking down the side of the road. Cell service would drop out for an hour at a time. Oh and you had better use the restroom and pump some gas whenever you get the chance, because there could be hundreds of miles between you and the next "town". I put town in quotation marks because most of the "towns" that we drove through consisted of a few shops that looked completely abandoned and maybe a gas station. That's what I call the middle of nowhere.

We finally got to Alamogordo after 8 hours of almost nothingness and the occasional tumbleweed blowing across the road. It was actually a lot bigger than I was expecting. There's a Walmart and plenty of chain restaurants (and even a couple local one's). But there's really nothing to do unless you want to eat or walk around walmart or the stand alone JCPenny's.

Me and my husband are taking this whole thing in stride, though. We've started adapting to it a lot; in fact we have actually come to sort of enjoy it. The city is in a basin surrounded by mountains. So instead of doing something we would have done back home, like shopping, rollerskating, going to a movie theater, we explore the mountains instead. We have both come to love hiking and the views are so beautiful that we have considered retiring near here and putting a house on the side of one of the mountains (but that's way in the future). The White Sands National Monument is here too. It's about a 25 minute drive away, but we go up there with our dog all the time. We've also gotten used to long drives. Now it seems like nothing to drive 1.5-2 hours to Las Cruces or El Paso so that we can go to a mall or watch a movie in theaters.

The moral of the story is that, instead of complaining, you can always make the best out of wherever you are. Learn to love the nature around you. Go explore. Take a road trip every now and then if you have too. Even if there are no malls or there's no cell service, that doesn't mean there's nothing to do. There is always something to do even if you have to make something to do for yourself. For example,one of the reasons I created my hubpages account is so that I'd have something to do while my husband is at work. And always remember that there's someone out there with less to do than you, so complaining doesn't do any good. Also, always remember to stock up on gas before you go anywhere out in the middle of nowhere ;p