Gas Prices

Quote: rxwine

Living any place with that much traffic to deal with is not a joy. But then again, if I can avoid driving during the heaviest traffic hours I do that as often as possible, no matter where I am.

Thing is CA is now getting to where there are no off-traffic-hours. Maybe like 2-5 AM. The rest is one big jam. SoCal is just endless sprawl. I cannot see why people like living there. Yet they think it is the best place on earth.

Quote: AZDuffman

Thing is CA is now getting to where there are no off-traffic-hours. Maybe like 2-5 AM. The rest is one big jam. SoCal is just endless sprawl. I cannot see why people like living there. Yet they think it is the best place on earth.

They live there because of the weather. You hear that constantly. I lived in California for seven years and in the winter because they live on the end of a time Zone it starts to get dark at 4:30 it is totally dark by 5 p.m. In December and January. If you have a job you are just as restricted in the winter as you are if you lived back east because when you get off work it's dark. And if it's a typical winter it rains all the time. People live for the weekends.

Quote: terapined

Its one of the most beautiful bike rides I've ever taken, Santa Monica Beach boardwalk through Venice Beach to Marina Del Rey. Absolutely beautiful

You know when the media claims some fact about a subject in which you are well versed & you realize they are distorting the truth.
That is the feeling I get when I read the above.
The boardwalk through this area is filled with homelessness & crazies that are yelling at passers by.
Particularly south Santa Monica & Venice.
Los Angeles is a $hithole all the way from downtown to the ocean with pockets of wealth, normally found behind gates.
Anyone telling you a different story has never lived there.

Quote: JCW09

You know when the media claims some fact about a subject in which you are well versed & you realize they are distorting the truth.
That is the feeling I get when I read the above.
The boardwalk through this area is filled with homelessness & crazies that are yelling at passers by.
Particularly south Santa Monica & Venice.
Los Angeles is a $hithole all the way from downtown to the ocean with pockets of wealth, normally found behind gates.
Anyone telling you a different story has no never lived there.

Anyone can go to the fanciest parts of town for a short time and say it is a great place to live. Remember "Three's Company" when their Santa Monica rent was $300 (later $500) a month? Today it would be 10Xs that!

Venice beach and Santa Monica have always been interesting places but even in the 70's when I was there for the first time I didn't consider them beautiful. I have often had long waits between flights when I have flown through LAX. If it was more than 2 or 3 hours I would always take a cab down to Santa Monica and get some sea air, much nicer than sitting in LAX. 9/11 of course put and end to that because I didn't want to have to go through security on the way back.

Quote: JCW09

Anyone telling you a different story has no never lived there.

Visiting a place as a tourist as Terrapinned does and living there are two entirely different things. He sees everything through rose colored glasses. I visited Hawaii in the seventies and loved it so much I moved there. Big mistake. After 6 months I hated it so much I had to get out. Southern California can look great if you're there for 3 days. If you're there for 3 months it's an armpit.

Quote: AZDuffman

When I have downtime at work I will sometimes play with Google Maps. When I see a place like LA I cannot imagine living there by choice. So depressing looking. A ton of traffic to contend with for the simplest tasks. Visited once, hard to describe how fake the whole place felt. It is no wonder you hear the term "Californication." If I had to live there I would be on every anti-depressant drug invented.

I did a short stint in LA, Nov 97 to Feb. 98, on the beach was pretty nice. Of course the traffic was thick, but we were always travelling against it, so it only took 1 1/2 hours each way to work. I could have stayed at Dana Point for a while in the Marina.

I spent my early career in PNW, between Seattle, Spokane and Portland. Living by Mt. St. Helens, in 80, commuting to downtown Portland, I decided one morning while locked in traffic to take a photograph in each direction, headlights as far as the eye could see in one direction and tail lights the other. Swore right then to move to Alaska, and if I ever thought of moving back I would pull out those pictures. I'm not willing to spend 2-3 hours each day commuting to and from work. Road rage every other day in the paper. A mans got to have priority's.

Quote: AZDuffman

When I see a place like LA I cannot imagine living there by choice.

I spent a few weeks in LA in the mid-seventies, staying with two relatives who'd moved there from NJ seeking the better life.

One lived in Marina Del Rey, the other Huntington Beach.

I really liked it there.

Over time they decided LA wasn't what it used to be: seeking a better life one moved to Lopez Island in the San Juan islands of Washington state, the other to rural New Hampshire.

Gotta keep chasin' your dream...

On my trip across country I spent as high as $4 for gas in Nevada and the lowest was $2,59 in Texas. $2.99 was probably the average. I went 2490 miles and spent $308 on filling the tank.

Quote: DRich

On my trip across country I spent as high as $4 for gas in Nevada and the lowest was $2,59 in Texas. $2.99 was probably the average. I went 2490 miles and spent $308 on filling the tank.

Do we get pictures of your new house?