California Dreaming

There's just something about California. I know that many people whine about its political atmosphere, and its population density, and its exporting of wacky people who bring their annoying California attitudes to their new place ...

But you can't beat the feel of the air, or the nature of the light, or the vast acreage of gorgeous black dirt where anything can grow, all year round. And this is northern California, near Sacramento. I know I've waxed on about Southern Cal, over and over, ad nauseum. I've only visited up here twice, and for brief weekend trips. But it grabs me the way the rest of coastal California always does.

This part is actually in the center of the state, but because of all the big rivers and the proximity of the wetlands that are adjacent to the huge estuarial area of the San Francisco Bay, it seems coastal. The air is misty, moisty and everything is green and growing. The diversity of trees, bushes, flowers, and birds, makes me long to live here again.

I do love the desert, really. But I also miss the ease with which plants grow here in California. You can just push geraniums cuttings in the ground and they grow all over the yard, trailing along the paths. You can harvest something from your garden nearly year round. Then there's the ferns, the poppies, the fruit trees, the ivy, night blooming jasmine. I love it and I miss it.

For now, we must stay in Las Vegas. But every time I visit California, as I cross the state line going east, in my head I quote the Governator: "I'll Be Baauuck."