Back from the Coast

So, my trip out the west coast is over. This was my first trip to California, and I found it very different than I imagined.

The first thing I noticed was the traffic. Everyone always talks about how bad the Southern California traffic is. Personally I thought it was FANTASTIC. If you don’t live here in Northern Colorado, you might not understand. Our community has an incredibly high traffic cop to driver ratio. In fact I got pulled over myself just a couple weeks ago. Out in Cali it’s completely different. Everyone out there drives with a flagrant disregard for any kind of personal safety. No one even seems to notice the lines that the state so generously painted on the streets. In fact I think California could improve their budget if they just saved all that pigment. Traffic cops were nowhere to be found. It’s a free-for-all and I had a blast (of course my sister, the untrusting individual that she is, didn’t enjoy the roads as much as I did).

The other major eye-opener in San Diego was the lack of Beautiful People™. TV, Movies, popular culture in general creates this image of Southern California as being full of sun-kissed, large breasted, scantily clad, bleached blonde women and statuesque surfer men with rippling muscles wearing wetsuits during the day and Armani at night. This was just not the case. Perhaps different areas fit this stereotype better, but San Diego, Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach, even La Jolla just didn’t give me this impression. On the contrary, population was (generally) split into two different categories. One was the same kind of 30-40 something parents running around in mini-vans and SUVs with their kids that we have in Colorado (this includes the tourists). The other were beach bums that haven’t changed clothes in the last 5 years. You know the kind – the people that are working on (or have) killing all their brain cells with pot. Sure, there was a mix, large hispanic population, plenty of flashy/expensive cars, but overall the biggest difference from here were the bohemian style beach culture. Not what I really expected at all.

Overall, it was a great trip. I’ll probably post more comments, stories and pics in the near future. For now I’m just glad to be home.