[steven]

Thank you! By the way I notice you edited your post-- I found the edited portion to be quite interesting to be honest. It sounds like you got to see a very interesting part of America (that I frankly can hardly even imagine... it reminds me a bit of the Amish or something like that).

Looking at the rule that you provided me, it seems right to my ears. However, with a word like くばる being changed to くぼった, I seem to hear words that don't follow the rule you presented. I wonder if there is a reason for that. Do you know of why people'd say that?

I feel like I hear つこおた sometimes... places where I'd expect a small "tsu", the vowel just gets kinda dragged out. I only seem to hear it with kind of older people in the mountains though.