In my opinion, summer couldn't arrive soon enough. Between it FINALLY warming up outside and the regular army-crawl of finals week, this college student is ready for some rest and relaxation.

This summer, as with the last few summers in my collegiate career, I've packed up my dorm room and made the trek home for a rent-free (though not chore-free or work-free) stay at my parent's house, complete with home-cooked meals, sibling movie nights, and laugh-filled hug battles.

While my home life with my amazing, crazy family is pretty exciting, I've discovered one aspect of my non-college life that has changed very little: my hometown. Burlington, Kansas, with a population of 2,610 people, is a small country town by every definition.

Now, I'm not saying this metropolis is at a standstill by any means. New businesses keep forming, old ones are thriving, and, contrary to popular belief, I don't actually know everyone who lives here. However, there are a few summer-centered characteristics of a small town that will never change. Here are five of them.

1. The smell of burning fields.

This is one of my favorite smells in the entire universe, and I look forward to summer every year simply because of this. While I did not grow up on a farm (and therefore can't tell you exactly what this is and/or when farmers do it), I'm pretty obsessed with how it smells.

2. Everyone asks about your life, even though they already know most of it.

News travels fast in a small town, there's no denying that. I've been home for about ten days, and I've already had several conversations that are like the following:

Person: "So, how's college?"

Me: "Oh, it's going - "

The person, interrupting: "How's majoring in English? I heard you have a couple years left. Is it true you want to teach high school English?"

Me shocked that this person who've I talked to twice in the past year knows everything about my life: "...yeah."

This will never change, but I will continue to be surprised by it every time it happens.

3. The ability to drive anywhere from 2 to 102 miles an hour on country roads.

Country roads are somewhat like the Autobahn in that it sometimes seems like there's no speed limit ever. I've heard from many friends that they will occasionally challenge themselves to drive as fast as they can to get to town, sometimes breaking 100 mph.

Of course, there's always the possibility of encountering a tractor on the way, which will take you from 60 to 0 in 3.5, to paraphrase Rihanna.

4. Every place in town is about two minutes away, driving.

In Burlington, the entire town is just over two square miles large and traffic is a seven-letter word. I can confidently leave for work five minutes before my shift and know I will be early.

5. You can tell when it's about to rain because EVERYONE is out mowing.

Sure, you can check the weather, and there's at least one person mowing every single day. However, there is nothing more accurate in the summer than Kansas mowers and weather.

Odds are if you see more than five people in a single neighborhood out cutting the grass in the morning, then there will be showers in the afternoon.