“California Here I Come...”

It’s not the Garden of Eden

Most of California is uninhabitable. I have flown across California numerous times, for some reason that occurred to me this time as I looked down out the plane window at the Serra Mountains raising up from the desert. (You want to see desert. Drive in a car from San Diego to El Centro.)

There is the Central Valley, the coast, and strings and patches of habitation scattered here and there, that’s about it.

It’s not Virginia. 

Later, flying up the coast from LA, I see homes desperately clinging to the slide prone earth

rising up from the ocean. At Santa Barbara we cross over a peninsula to the central coast. It’s Fall, looking down I see not the gray of the desert and mountains but, brown—brown brown. If a match were dropped all would be gone in a flash of flame.

My first visit to California was in 1953, when California was Hollywood, fresh orange juice stands, sunshine, surfing, sunglasses, convertibles, good paying jobs, Knot’s Berry Farm,  Rose Parade, Ozzy & Harriet, and San Francisco was the most beautiful city in the world; all while inventing smog, freeways and track houses, during, The Colorado River Project, bringing water from the Intermountain West — so that houses could be built on top of houses. 

Years later, I lived in California for fifteen years: San Diego, Orange County, Central Coast, and Monterey, and lived with: fire, flood, riot, earthquake, drought, taxes and sanctuary. 

Maybe, the Spaniards with their Ranchos had it right. 

“...Back Where I Started From.”

Look who’s talking. Uninhabitable? In my home state of Utah it’s all mountains and desert with a thin string of habitats running along the Wasatch Front - I-15 and a few smaller strings and patches elsewhere, but it is fun to look at and recreate in.

Maybe the rattlesnakes and jackrabbits had it right. 

Welcome to the American West. 

Carpe Diem,

Carl Rich