Traveling

[Ulysses]

In the nearly 60 years I've lived in California, Bakersfield has never been described to me as a desirable place to live or even visit. Unfortunately it straddles the main freeway between North and South, Highway 5, so it's sort of unavoidable. I think the most I've ever done there is to get gas or stop off at a fast food drive-thru to get a burger. And even that was sort of depressing.

[O Really]

You'd have to go about 15 or so miles out of your way to get into Bakersfield if you're on the 5. Maybe you were on the 99? Anyway, it's not a top tier destination city.

[O Really]

Didn't affect us, as we absolutely positively would not be anywhere around Las Vegas on a holiday, but traffic on I-15 was backed up 19 miles going back to California.

https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/loc ... r-2486862/





...or not.

[neoplacebo]

I've been up in a hot air balloon most of the day. Chicken in a basket. It got cold all up in there. If I had a parachute, I'd have jumped.

[Ulysses]

You'd have to go about 15 or so miles out of your way to get into Bakersfield if you're on the 5. Maybe you were on the 99? Anyway, it's not a top tier destination city.

I was going by an internet map, not from memory. 99 sounds more like it, since 5 would probably avoid a city like Bakersfield. Also, I don't think highway 5 had been contructed in that area at that time (late 1960's). Here's the wiki on it:

A major deviation from the old US 99 route is the Westside Freeway portion of I-5 in California's Central Valley. To provide a faster and more direct north–south route through the state, the decision was made to build a new freeway to the west and bypass Fresno, Bakersfield, and the rest of population centers in the area instead of upgrading the existing highway (which was re-designated as part of SR 99).[4] This re-route through California's Central Valley was the last section of I-5 to be constructed, with the final segment dedicated and opened to traffic near Stockton, California, on October 12, 1979. Representatives from both Canada and Mexico attended the dedication to commemorate the first contiguous freeway connecting the North American countries.[5]

What I do remember is that whole area was hot and dusty and dull. We were probably headed for the Mojave Desert, which was even more hot and dusty and dull.

[Ulysses]

Although the Mojave, as I recall some 50+ years later, did have some interesting cacti. Maybe some Joshua trees as well. And nice red rocks. As I recall.

[O Really]

Yeah, I'm not much of a desert person. But you were probably leaving Bakersfield on US58 across the desert toward the very bleak little town of Barstow, a place of major missed opportunity. Barstow is where I-15 and I-40 meet, about half way from Las Vegas to LA. It is also a town on the mostly dead but still famous Route 66. Lots of people coming through, lots of history, and it has done little to attract or make money off visitors, although that may be improving some.

As to the 5, I didn't know it was only completed in 1972. But we may have missed a few miles here and there but have basically been on all of it from Mexico to Canada. Overall, it's a lot better ride than I-95, its east coast equivalent.

[Ulysses]

Yeah, I'm not much of a desert person. But you were probably leaving Bakersfield on US58 across the desert toward the very bleak little town of Barstow, a place of major missed opportunity. Barstow is where I-15 and I-40 meet, about half way from Las Vegas to LA. It is also a town on the mostly dead but still famous Route 66. Lots of people coming through, lots of history, and it has done little to attract or make money off visitors, although that may be improving some.

As to the 5, I didn't know it was only completed in 1972. But we may have missed a few miles here and there but have basically been on all of it from Mexico to Canada. Overall, it's a lot better ride than I-95, its east coast equivalent.

Back in the late sixties I met the wife of a natural history research station who was from Barstow. She was always almost apologetic about it. Perhaps she was a bit envious of my San Francisco residency, although at the time I probably would have been much happier in Barstow - if I had wheels.

[O Really]

If Barstow was just some old town out in the middle of nowhere, you wouldn't find it a bad spot particularly. But to be at the intersection of the heavily trafficked main highways it's on and not to become more of a destination spot is sad. It could easily be a California Moab. Ironically, one of the main attractions there is a ghost town.

[Ulysses]

If Barstow was just some old town out in the middle of nowhere, you wouldn't find it a bad spot particularly. But to be at the intersection of the heavily trafficked main highways it's on and not to become more of a destination spot is sad. It could easily be a California Moab. Ironically, one of the main attractions there is a ghost town.

I seem to recall Barstow had a good A&W stand back in the 60's. But I wouldn't put good money on it.

[Ulysses]

Speaking of Highway 5... there was a major incident last evening when a car (BMW) going the wrong way slammed into a semi and caught fire. The car driver has been booked on suspicion of drunk driving. Highway 80 was not affected (it goes under 5 at that point) but 5 was shut down in one direction (SB?) all night until about 7:30 am this morning (11-30-21).

Highway 5 traffic was re-routed west on 80, perhaps to connect to 50/99 to bypass the shut down area.

https://www.google.com/maps/search/hwy+ ... a=!3m1!1e3

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/ ... 662629.php

(note: the linked SFGate article incorrectly states the time of the closure as extending into Monday morning. Instead it started Monday afternoon and extended into Tuesday morning)

https://www.kcra.com/article/chp-wrong- ... o/38387068

[GoCubsGo]

Saving on gas?

[Vrede too]

Saving on gas?

Fuckin' Biden price hikes.

Article, limited info.

[O Really]

So we made it back to Oceanside from Palm Springs without incident and minimal traffic issues. Got settled, walked down to the beach, enjoyed the sunset. Life is good.

[Vrede too]

So we stopped off in Bakersfield on the way to Palm Springs at a very nice RV park where we've has short stays before. I mention that it's a very nice park to put context to the rest of my comments.
Bakersfield:
1. ...

Uneducated, fat, smoking, unhealthy, covid carrying poor people getting killed by their own cops. Is anyone shocked it's California's reddest area?

That's a pretty nasty place. Oh well, I stumbled on how some are trying to make it better:

A river once flowed through this California city. Now residents want the water back.

Good luck, Bakersfield tree huggers.

[O Really]

That's a pretty nasty place. Oh well, I stumbled on how some are trying to make it better:

A river once flowed through this California city. Now residents want the water back.

Good luck, Bakersfield tree huggers.

Yeah, they've got a sad looking mess now. There are several parks, and a very nice walking/bike trail that goes along the pretend river, but the river bed itself is mostly dry with the overflow areas having become pretty good off-road biking areas. If they return the water to the river, it will be very nice, but I'd say it's a long shot to make it happen.

[Ulysses]

The city where many find a California they can afford

No way, Jose...

For almost a decade, Edlin Gonzales was content to live in an aging studio apartment near Los Angeles’ bustling Miracle Mile, a canyon of tall office buildings, museums and restaurants in the middle of the city.

But when the pandemic ground life to a standstill, Gonzales, 33, decided the time had come to try buying a home. “It’s like the American dream,” she said. “My parents were immigrants, so that’s the idea of success.”

In Los Angeles, though, the places she could afford would not have been much different from her apartment. So Gonzales, who works remotely for a medical research company, looked 100 miles north to Bakersfield. In January, she snagged a three-bedroom house with hardwood floors and a pool for $342,000, and joined a wave of in-state migration to one of the last affordable frontiers in California’s frenzied housing market.

For generations, Bakersfield has been the Golden State’s defiant outlier, a place Americans are unlikely to picture when they imagine California. At one of the city’s premier parks, a jogging trail winds along a bluff top with vistas not of the glittering sea, but of nodding pump jacks scattered across the vast, brown landscape of the Kern River Oil Field. Residents, many of whom proudly claim their descent from “Okies” fleeing the Dust Bowl and from migrant farmworkers from Mexico, joke that Bakersfield is the Texas of California.

...

[O Really]

So we stopped off in Bakersfield on the way to Palm Springs at a very nice RV park where we've has short stays before. I mention that it's a very nice park to put context to the rest of my comments.
Bakersfield:
1. One of the least educated places in the US, ranking 100 out of 100 largest metro areas.
2. Top ten in obesity in US, as well has more than twice the California average for smokers, high rate of diabetes and hypertension
3. Frontier delineating Sureño and Norteño gang territories
4. Bakersfield police kill civilians at the highest rate in the U.S., logging 13.6 killings per million people, compared to the U.S. average of 3.6. Law enforcement officers in Kern County, California, killed more people per capita than in any other American county in 2015.
5. 20% official poverty rate.
6. 47% covid vax rate.
and...

Bakersfield may be the eighth-most-conservative city in the United States and the most conservative city in California. In the 2008 Presidential election, Republican John McCain received 55.6% of the city's votes to Democrat Barack Obama's 42.9%. The same year, Bakersfield cast 75.2% of its votes in favor of Proposition 8, which amended the California Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. In the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump received 50.4% of the vote compared to Hillary Clinton's 44.0%. Bakersfield is in parts of two Congressional districts, one of which has the scummy Kevin McCarthy.

Uneducated, fat, smoking, unhealthy, covid carrying poor people getting killed by their own cops. Is anyone shocked it's California's reddest area?

Why oh why would housing be less expensive in Bakersfield?
Oh yeah, because it's a miserable place to live.

[Ulysses]

So we stopped off in Bakersfield on the way to Palm Springs at a very nice RV park where we've has short stays before. I mention that it's a very nice park to put context to the rest of my comments.
Bakersfield:
1. One of the least educated places in the US, ranking 100 out of 100 largest metro areas.
2. Top ten in obesity in US, as well has more than twice the California average for smokers, high rate of diabetes and hypertension
3. Frontier delineating Sureño and Norteño gang territories
4. Bakersfield police kill civilians at the highest rate in the U.S., logging 13.6 killings per million people, compared to the U.S. average of 3.6. Law enforcement officers in Kern County, California, killed more people per capita than in any other American county in 2015.
5. 20% official poverty rate.
6. 47% covid vax rate.
and...

Bakersfield may be the eighth-most-conservative city in the United States and the most conservative city in California. In the 2008 Presidential election, Republican John McCain received 55.6% of the city's votes to Democrat Barack Obama's 42.9%. The same year, Bakersfield cast 75.2% of its votes in favor of Proposition 8, which amended the California Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. In the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump received 50.4% of the vote compared to Hillary Clinton's 44.0%. Bakersfield is in parts of two Congressional districts, one of which has the scummy Kevin McCarthy.

Uneducated, fat, smoking, unhealthy, covid carrying poor people getting killed by their own cops. Is anyone shocked it's California's reddest area?

Why oh why would housing be less expensive in Bakersfield?
Oh yeah, because it's a miserable place to live.

Well, there is that.

However, the lady featured in the article grew up near Bakersfield, so it's not like it's an unknown quantity for her.

The worst part of Bakersfield is the poor air quality. Probably smoggy air blown in from the LA region, as well as foul emissions from the Kern oil and gas fields nearby. Originally I thought the lack of water in the Kern River route through Bakersfield was also due to LA taking it, but apparently it's the agricultural lands that are mostly responsible for the dry river bed.

From where does San Diego steal its water?

[Vrede too]

... The worst part of Bakersfield is the poor air quality. Probably smoggy air blown in from the LA region, as well as foul emissions from the Kern oil and gas fields nearby....

LA pollution is not the issue.

Air quality