Dateline: Santa Ynez, California. The DrsC will be spending some time here in Ronald Reagan country - the coast range valleys northwest of Santa Barbara. It’s very pretty here; the green/brown cycle is exactly the reverse of most places in the U.S. It is green in the winter and brown in the summer. California gets almost all of its rain in the months from November to May, and most of that in December and January. So the grass gets green in winter and dries out in summer. Most of the state doesn’t get enough hard frosts to kill the grass in winter, so green is what we’ve got now, it goes away in May.
If you’re having trouble placing where I write from, it is the setting of the film “Sideways” and the site of the Michael Jackson getaway he called “Neverland.” There are a lot of wineries and horse ranches here; only a few of either are serious economic propositions in my judgment. In other words, there are a lot of rich people here who thought it would be fine to own a vineyard and winery or perhaps a horse breeding ranch. Oddly, there is also a small Indian reservation for the Chumash tribe which features a quite large casino. Oh, yes, and the valley is the location of the small “Danish” town called Solvang which is overloaded with souvenir shops and bakeries.
Ironically, homes in Santa Barbara (or here) cost too much for not-rich people to buy. So many of the not-rich people who work in Santa Barbara live in the Santa Maria and Lompoc areas and commute through the Santa Ynez valley, causing traffic backups during rush hours. They could go via US 101 but that route is farther and probably slower. It is the same economic dynamic that drove hundreds of thousands to commute into Los Angeles from the inland desert communities, seen here in miniature.
Why do we come here? As I write this we are sitting with the door open, and windows too. It is almost too warm. We took a walk earlier, beautiful blue sky reflected in the reservoir, ground squirrels scampering around, boats out fishing, and yet the place we are in is not crowded, unusual for Southern California. Yesterday was cool and blustery with rain showers, tomorrow may be the same. But it is the days like today that draw us back year after year – the feel of late spring in mid-winter in a much prettier setting than Palm Springs, ya gotta love it.
I grew up here, one major valley to the east, and didn’t appreciate what I had till I no longer had it. That is one of the less attractive aspects of human nature.
