Let me preface my comments by saying I’m not trying to pick on California. I chose them as my topic today because 1). I was there this week for the first time in several years. 2) I was there for 3 days mostly due to having to reset my logbook, then driving more then 300 miles to get my reload. And maybe 3) Because they are such a sharp contrast to the part of North America I live in, the east coast of Canada.
First you can’t get much more contrast then two coasts more than 3000 miles apart. Some of the similarities are unremarkable. There are friendly and not so friendly people on both coasts. There are criminals and law breakers on both coasts. Percentage wise crime may even be the same but due to the much larger population in California the incident rate is far greater.
Most of the things I noticed had to do with the environment.
* Open burning of trash and brush. Not allowed in Nova Scotia except by special permit and only at certain times of the year.
* It was obvious that a huge percentage of vehicles passing me on the streets were big gas guzzling V-8′s. Most people in the east have long since converted to 6 and 4 cylinder engines.
* No control on emissions from factories and industrial plants. The air in California stinks almost everywhere. The stench even crept into my cab with the windows tightly closed.
* Poor visibility almost everywhere even way out in the country. There seems to be a perpetual haze in the air. I assume it’s smog but my only experience with that in Canada is around Toronto and Montreal during a weather inversion or when there are forest fires burning somewhere.
* Maybe it’s just a symptom of an older and more crowded part of the country but there seem to be many businesses and properties abandoned and moldering in states of ruin and decay. Also a lot of useful land just lying unused and weed choked.
On the plus side, I saw many crews out cleaning up garbage along the highway, though why this should still be necessary anywhere in North America in this supposedly enlightened age is beyond me. I guess there will always be slobs who think it’s all right to just turf it out the window and let someone else pick up after them.
I’m sure there are many more redemptive qualities to California as well but to the casual observer only there for a few days, it seems the negatives jump out at a person much more readily. I welcome comments from those who would like to point out some of the better qualities or defend against any of my comments here. Not that defense is a requirement, but California after all calls itself the Golden State. The only gold I saw was the sun struggling vainly to shine through the smog.
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