Yankton, South Dakota. This town, and thousands like it, are like dust bunnies on the face of North America. The winds of fate have blown together another cluster of people with their attendant schools, churches, bars, banks, hardware stores, fast food franchises, street lights, and road signs to the next dust bunny down the highway. And like dust bunnies, these towns are unique in their own way. But not that unique. Really, they are all the same. Driving through them gives one a been-there-done-that kind of Deja-Vu-like experience. How individual can people be when after several generations of developing apart, thousands of small towns all look the same.
I wonder why people choose to live with such homogeneity. It seems they grow up in one of these towns, then get a case of wanderlust and leave to see the world. After a few years many come back to settle down and raise their families and the cycle repeats (if their home town doesn't just dry up and vanish). Perhaps when they travel around the midwest they realize that every place is pretty much the same as every other. Then they decide they might as well just settle down and save the gas money.
I'm sure glad I don't live here. I'm just passing through.