Recently got my first taste of the "real world" at college after 18 years of living in the small town I've always called home. I've been back home for about two and a half months now, and it's strange adjusting back to rural living. After knowing what the "real world" is like, I look at some moments in my hometown of Challis, Idaho and can't help but shake my head and say, "This is such a small town thing."

I had a good laugh when I realized how many of these small town moments I've captured on camera for my Snapchat story. I feel like I need to share to give other people a chuckle, too.

If you've never been involved with a small town, here are 10 brutally honest glimpses into life in a rural area. If you've lived in a small town before, hopefully you can find these as funny as I did.

1. The road sign situation is pretty hit-or-miss.

When I got home from college, this stop sign that had always been at this intersection was, presumably, ran over by a car because all that was there in its place was a bunch of splinters sticking up from the ground. A couple days later, they brought in a jerry-rigged temporary sign weighed down by a tire. Well, soon enough that tipped over, and it was kind of like that for a while. But to conclude, there was eventually a real replacement put in for the stop sign, and everything is fine in that intersection. Understand that this is not the first, last or only time this sort of sign incident has occurred in Challis.

2. Those middle-of-the-road conversations.

This is a common staple of small town-dom: If you're driving down the road, and you see someone coming the other way who you've been meaning to talk to, you signal to them to stop, and you both meet in the middle of the road and have a conversation. You don't really have to worry about holding up traffic because there's not any to hold up.

Well, this one time I witnessed this phenomenon was exceptional. I was sitting at my desk being normal, and then I looked out the window to see one woman walking her horses down the street, and another woman in a car who had slowed down and I watched them have an entire conversation all the way down the street. What?

3. The things you come across while driving.

I was making my commute to work, and about halfway there, I turned a corner and met a couple of cows that had gotten loose and were battling right in the middle of the highway. OK. No big deal.

4. The deer basically own the place.

You can't shoot a deer within city limits, and I think the know that. They gather together and wreak havoc on lawns and gardens. If you've ever been out in the forest and came across a deer, it probably ran away from you. That doesn't happen in town. This is a classic feature of my small town, and it felt like a "Welcome Home" when the neighborhood deer gathered right outside my window the first week I got home.

I would like to note: I went out on an evening drive to try and find something to take a picture of to use as the cover photo for this article. At first I took a picture of the Challis sign, which was nice, but I wondered if I could find something better, so I started to drive to the top of main street. On the way, I had to stop my car to wait for a five-point buck to cross the street at a crosswalk. So if you were wondering why the photo is so blurry, it's because I was laughing too hard about the irony when I took the picture.

5. Gardens. Everywhere.

This probably isn't a "thing" in every small town, but I realized that it sure is in my hometown. For as many unkempt, dead, sagebrush-infested yards there are around town, there are just as many beautiful gardens. A drive around any neighborhood will earn you glimpses of flowers, bushes and trees overflowing from yards. And in May, the lilacs are simply out of control. Which I think is amazing, because lilacs are my absolute favorite flower.

6. Things are so quiet and still.

Especially at seven in the morning, the town is just still. You could look up and down Main Street ("downtown" of Challis) and not see a single car or human. Just the morning sun peeking up over the ridge and the trees and flowers casting their first shadows of the day, and of course, birds politely singing up and down the street. It feels like you're standing in the most cliche poem ever, and it's beautiful nearly to the point of disgust.

7. Incredible views are easily accessible.

This was literally my view at work one week. Living in a town in the mountains definitely has its perks. (And definitely makes hard work a little bit easier.)

8. The grand night lights of the city.

This is Challis at night. So, yeah. That's all. That's the whole town.

9. You literally see everything that happens.

They say that news travels like wild fire in a small town, that nothing can be kept secret and that everyone knows everyone else's business. Well, it's hard to not be nosy when you can literally see everything that goes down. Nothing ever happens, so when something does, you can often physically see it, like this one time I could tell someone was getting pulled over from across the valley.

10. You have to be creative with entertainment.

A common complaint among young people everywhere is that "it's boring" and there's "nothing to do." But in a town like Challis with one coffee shop, zero movie theaters, and nothing even remotely similar to a mall, that complaint is pretty understandable. When it comes to hanging out, if you don't want to get wasted, your only other option in a small town is to get creative. Which brings us to that one time my friends and I went to the river, watched a movie in the back of my car and made our own little "homemade drive-in."

In all of these instances, I remember shaking my head, pulling out my phone to get documented evidence of the ridiculous thing I was beholding, and thinking, "Oh, Challis. This just doesn't happen anywhere else."