To Whom It May Concern

Reflections On California

It’s interesting that I can think of only a few places in the United States where I would absolutely NOT want to live. New York City comes to mind, Boston is another, but in terms of entire states, I was always opposed to living in California. I don’t know if it was because it seems like every person I had ever met from there has been shallow and self centered, or the idea of being in earthquake/forest fire/mud slide central, or even if it were something else about California that bothered me. So how interesting it was when belly and I found out a year and a half ago that she would not be stationed at Yuma, Arizona, but would in fact be at Camp Pendleton, in good old California.

So from the middle of November 2005 to now belly has lived in Oceanside, right next to San Diego. As for myself, I was there from November of 2006 till middle of January 2007. All together, I spent roughly 105 days in California, including the two weeks back in May when I was home on leave. As belly finishes up her time in the USMC, I’m back in Nebraska getting things ready for our return to the Husker state. Being here allows me to look back at my time in California and reflect a bit.

I’d say the first impression I got out of California was people, everywhere. There are just SO many people. I think you can be on any stretch of road or interstate at any time of day or night and there will always be other cars out there with you. If you want to get out and really “drive”, good luck. Better do it in the middle of the night because between 6 am and 10 pm, the interstates are far too crowded, and people of foreign persuasion have absolutely NO concept as to WHY the left lane is called the “passing lane”. To them it’s just another lane to drive 5 mph slower than the speed limit. Yes Hispanic and Asian drivers, I’m talking to you.

There were a lot of other SRT4 drivers out there, oddly enough I rarely ever saw one while just out driving around, but I went to a couple of meets and also to the California Speedway at Fontana to race a couple of times down the track, and they were all over there. There is quite a community online to work with in that area and that was nice. To put it into perspective, in Nebraska I have seen only one other SRT4, on base a few days after I got back. And in the regional sections on the srtforums, there is basically nothing going on in the Nebraska area, where as the California sections had a good amount of information and feedback, and events going on. I guess that’s just the difference when you have some 10 or 15 million people in an area that in Nebraska holds about 1 million.

I guess maybe coming from Nebraska I was a little unprepared for the volume of humanity you find in California. We experienced the worst of this on a Saturday in December when we went to Disneyland. It was a lot of fun early in the day, and even at about 3 pm it wasn’t too bad, but for some reason, after 5 or 6 pm people just started flooding the gates, it was like ants marching or something. We really thought that going to Disneyland in December on a Saturday would mean we’d get a lot more freedom to move around and wouldn’t have to wait in line very long for rides or food, etc. We couldn’t have been more wrong. I don’t know that I have ever seen that many people in one place at one time. It was really crazy.

Of course, with all these people, you need a way to feed everyone, and places for everyone to shop. Can’t say I have too much to complain about in that department. It seemed like you could see the golden arches of the next McDonalds from any McDonalds you went to in California, they were everywhere. There were also around 10 Walmarts within about 10 miles of our place. It was interesting sometimes how belly and I couldn’t decide what to eat, we’d just drive around and there were just too many places, how do you choose? It also made it hard to stay at home and eat, and that can be a bad thing, both on your waist and your wallet. But for all he different places shop and eat, there was very little open after 11 at night. Omaha has several 24 hour Walmarts, all of them around Oceanside closed at 11. Same with most of the places to eat, which in all reality is just like Omaha. That surprised me.

The weather was amazing. On January 1st, I went outside at about 1 in the afternoon and it was 81 degrees. That is just unreal. The weather tends to stay between 50 and 80 for the most part year round. There are a few exceptions, I don’t know about the hotter times, I wasn’t there at all during the summer, but there were a few days when it approached freezing while I was there. That seemed quite cold at the time. But I’m looking out the window now in Nebraska, at 6 inches of snow on the ground and a constant 5 degree temperature, and somehow 35 degrees actually sounds kind of nice.

I took the weather for granted while I was there. My car was always clean and sparkling, the interior still looked and smelled new. Now my car is covered in salty grime, the interior has little dirt swipes along the bottom of the doors, there is sand and grime all over in the floor mats, it’s not a disaster area, but it just doesn’t look brand new anymore. But even for how crummy the weather is now, I prefer having the seasons, both because it gives you a change of scenery, and activities, and you also have something to look forward to, if you don’t care for the weather, wait a couple months, it’s going to change.

One thing that didn’t surprise me about California, the people can be very rude. They will cut in line at the store, they will steal your parking spot right in front of you, they will talk over you if you are asking someone a question, just so they can get help before you, it’s really surprising to see just what they feel is acceptable. That’s not to say you always see this, but it is really prevalent. Certainly this isn’t just in California, whenever you throw millions of people into one area you will have this. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to enjoy it regardless of where it happens. I was appalled at what I saw from time to time.

Another surprise about California: I seriously thought that I would have to contend with hoards of Hondas and other low rate foreign cars trying to race me all the time. This never happened. In fact, the people driving those cars were reasonable to be around, rarely ever revving the engine at red lights or driving stupid. It was morons in pickup trucks that did all of that. I swear, I’ve never seen so many idiots driving pickups, always trying to race. Time and time again I’d be at an intersection waiting for a light to turn green, sitting next to a lane that would end just after the intersection, and some dumb ass in a pickup would pull up into that lane and inch out ahead as though to get ahead of me. Time and time again I’d leave the morons way behind, as he drives his oversized phallic symbol of a truck as hard as reckless as he can, failing by far to get ahead. It probably has something to do with having several large military facilities nearby, along with having the sand dunes within a couple of hours to the west. But still it was a surprise to see that the idiots aren’t driving little sports cars, they are driving 4X4 pickup trucks.

I will admit though, California wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. The scenery was beautiful, the weather was amazing like I said. We really didn’t take advantage of being that close to the ocean like we should have, and I should have been out running every day, but I wasn’t. With so much fast food all around, and because I spent 15 months never cooking for myself, I got too used to hopping into my car and heading down the road to Jack in the Box, Carl Jr, McDonalds, etc, to get a burger and fries, many times with a milkshake. It certainly didn’t help that I loved driving my car around too.

But for all the little nice things about California, there are just too many people around for my liking. I am not claustrophobic by any means, but I like to be able to get away from human contact from time to time, to just go outside and get away from people, but out there, so many people. It’s nice in Nebraska to just go fishing or hiking somewhere and not see anyone for an entire day. I suppose had we lived a little further away from the coast in Cali it might have been different. Who knows, maybe we’ll be out there again someday. I know we’ll visit. Not sure if we’ll live there though. Three months is likely enough.