Dude, you've not been to the middle of nowhere until you've driven through podunk Kentucky or Tennessee.
See, you start driving in the city. Soon you reach the suburbs. Keep going and you eventually reach "the country." Keep driving a little more and you're out in the boonies. Now, depending on where you are, if you still keep going, you might wind up in the sticks. In rare instances, if you still keep driving, you'll enter a realm beyond the sticks that doesn't really have a word. You're now smack in the middle of nowhere.
A few years ago we were looking for some acreage in and around central Kentucky. We wound up trying to find this plot of available farmland about 90 minutes south of Lexington. Following the realtor's instructions, we took a 2 lane road for a while. This eventually turned into a one lane gravel road with steep banks on either side. After 9 or 10 miles, the gravel ran out and it was just dirt ruts. We had officially entered the sticks. But there was still no sign of this land that was for sale. We kept going but had to put the truck in 4wd. After a couple or three more miles or really bumpy going, we came up on this old hounddog laying in what, ostensibly, was the "road." This dog would not move. It raised its head to look at us for a moment then laid back down. We had to drive around that sumb!tch. This signaled to us that we'd exitted the sticks and entered something else. Eventually we did find the land. We decided it was too far out of the way to buy for anything other than hunting so we passed on the offer. As we were driving back, that damned dog was still laying in the road.
