California camping article

[IanC]

http://www.liveworkdream.com/2017/0...&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork

Interesting

 

[XFILE36]

http://www.liveworkdream.com/2017/0...&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=socialnetwork

Interesting

This is currently my dilemma Ian.  ty

 

[hepcat]

The modern-day version of "The Grapes of Wrath."

Amazing.

 

[IanC]

The modern-day version of "The Grapes of Wrath."

Amazing.

The sugar beet harvest of wrath

 

[Blanch]

Redwood Acres is right next to my oldest sons home. I looked around and then decided to illegally camp parked in front of his house. $200 a week to stay at Redwood Acres. Yikes!

I prefer to stay somewhere besides a RV park these days. What the article fails to mention is that many of the RV park full timers have drug/ meth/ alcohol problems. It is the housing of last resort, a step before homelessness. The parks don't require a deposit or credit check or employment information. If you have been evicted or had your power disconnected and can't get current with utilities then an RV park keeps you from homelessness. Buy a cheap trailer and move your family to a gravel parking lot with utilities. It is very sad and many of these places are pretty unsafe.

I'll stick with campgrounds and BLM land as much as possible.


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[TrainChaser]

But... but... but... How can this be? Just the other day the Dept. of Labor was bragging that unemployment is down to 4.4%! And the Dow Jones Industrial Average was sitting at 21,007 on Friday! *sarcasm*

 

[Blanch]

But... but... but... How can this be? Just the other day the Dept. of Labor was bragging that unemployment is down to 4.4%! And the Dow Jones Industrial Average was sitting at 21,007 on Friday! *sarcasm*

I know! And unicorns are spreading the gospel as our nation holds hands in unity.

It's tough to be poor, even tougher when the people who hold the purse strings sing from the mountain tops that you don't exist.

I've been middle class almost my entire life. A few mistakes, an illness, and boom! I've stayed in these types of trailer parks and I will have to again, but you have to lock all your stuff up and be vigilant. The poor and impoverished don't have a ride to the nice neighborhoods, they steal from each other.


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[MrNoodly]

many of the RV park full timers have drug/ meth/ alcohol problems.

You know that's what they say about us too, right?

 

[hepcat]

 What the article fails to mention is that many of the RV park full timers have drug/ meth/ alcohol problems. It is the housing of last resort, a step before homelessness. 

I lived in a 1970 Airstream Safari Special 23' trailer for a nearly a year in 1987/88.  I had it parked on a ranch with full hookups for the first four months, and after that I moved it to an RV/mobile home park in Mission Valley, then next-door to LaMesa RV just off I-8.  It was the first time I'd ever lived in a park...  and it was a MOST interesting experience.  Everyone in the park who was "normal" was a retiree on a small fixed income or disabled.  EVERY OTHER PERSON living in the park was either mentally ill, a doper of one flavor or another, an itinerant construction worker, or had warrants out for them; some fitting in more than one of those categories.  

It was certainly an eye-opener for me, and it made me realize what a fringe lifestyle I was living.   And that was THIRTY YEARS AGO!

I was in San Diego in January 2017 (thirty years hence) and I saw that the park not only still exists, but has expanded into the old La Mesa RV location and is twice as large.  The quality of the units appears to have come up quite a bit since I lived there though.

 

[Blanch]

You know that's what they say about us too, right?

Well I suppose that may be what is said. ... I never heard of "us" until I became one of us. The RV parks I have stayed at fit into two categories:
A. Expensive and full of $200,000 RVs.
B. More affordable places with monthly rates that are loud, have police visits, crime and some general insanity, and stuff that isn't locked up walks away.

I am so glad I ended up at the RTR to get educated. The seminars were very helpful. Now I have the knowledge I need to stay out of these RV parks.





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[waldenbound]

This is really sad. This is what the American Dream has turned into. A run-down RV in a run-down California RV park. Like someone in the article's comment section said, California is the trend setter for the nation. Is the the kind of trend we're looking at in the future?
This is sad, California is the place of my birth, I've never gotten to enjoy it.
Even the Joads wouldn't go there now. Ma Joad would say, "Turn the jalopy around Tom, we're staying out of Californie. Ok-la-ho-ma Here We Come!"

 

[IanC]

Is that a three legged dog on the beach?

Guy

I know, I couldn't even figure out where his legs were, never mind why he was on a leash on a huge, empty beach. Where's the fun in that?

 

[hepcat]

This is really sad. This is what the American Dream has turned into. A run-down RV in a run-down California RV park. Like someone in the article's comment section said, California is the trend setter for the nation. Is the the kind of trend we're looking at in the future?

 
Likely, yes.  I fled Iowa in 1974 swearing to never return.  I ended up in the Bay Area in '75-'76 and then in SoCal in '79 and really enjoyed it.  California was, in those days THE place to be.  But, unfortunately, it is a victim of it's own natural beauty and resources.  When I moved to San Diego in '79 the city had about 750,000 residents.  Today, it's almost 1.5m and growing.  All of the things that were enjoyable have been sacrificed to overcrowding and over-use.  There's a shortage of affordable housing that has driven real estate costs ridiculously high... and an over-abundance of labor holding wages unrealistically low... if you are employable.  That's a deadly combination for folks with little income and few skills.   Even the hinterlands of NoCal... traditionally the purview of farmers and hippies is un-affordable.  It's genuinely sad. 

I fled CA and returned to Iowa in '97...  and don't regret leaving for an instant.  My wife is a native San Diegan, and has no desire to go back.  That says a lot.  I have enjoyed returning to CA from time to time in the past twenty years, but this last trip I made out in January soured me forever.  I have no desire to return.  There's too many people... too much crowding and everything is too expensive.  It's just not for me any more.  I feel sorry for those who can't escape.

 

[IanC]

   I feel sorry for those who can't escape.

When I saw the prices of food (even things grown in California like raisins and walnuts, and face it, about everything else) I couldn't believe it.  How do people live there? I can see why the $15 an hour movement started there - it's that or starve.

 

[jonsun]

there was a bunch of jobs in CA on coolworks.

what you're seeing is capitalism. You have a place with highly desirable living with high earning sectors, great weather, great schools, grand geography, etc....housing prices go up

the reason its cheaper to live in missouri or kansas is due to the fact nobody wants to live there.

 

[hepcat]

there was a bunch of jobs in CA on coolworks.

I own twelve apartments in Iowa.  The average rent for them is $550 plus electricity.  The same apartment in Silicon Valley is $2350.  You need to make $1800/month MORE in San Jose just to make rent.  Try going out to dinner and spending less than $25/plate in SoCal. Mixed drinks are $12 at the bars.  It's nuts.

Oh yeah... there's lots of jobs in CA... and the pay looks great sometimes as much as three times what you'd get in St. Louis or Kansas City... and that's great until you do the math on the cost of living in CA and find out it costs five times more there than living in St. Louis or KC... and you actually have more disposable income and higher standard of living in the Midwest with less income.

It's amazing the way that works.  Have you read Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath?"

I'm pretty happy in the Midwest... and you're wrong...  the winter weather here just keeps the riff-raff out and makes the place nice for the rest of us.  BTW, it's pretty tough to buy groceries with sunshine.  We tried to do that for several years in San Diego in the '80s when the City told us that the sunshine and nice weather was part of our pay.

 

[jonsun]

sunshine buys all groceries

 

[IanC]

Well, maybe one day the RV parks will be filled with old nomads who are done traveling - just decent, interesting old folks like most of us are and lots of folks will think it's tragic, but we'll know better.

 

[slynne]

One of the reasons I want to be a nomad is to spend my winters in California. I have some friends in Sonoma County who have a free place for me to park. I've wintered there twice before and telecommuted to my job. It was lovely.

The thing is though, even though I earn pretty good money, I couldn't afford to live there full time. When I was there in February, I spent $6 for 1/2 gallon of milk! I suspect a lot of people are vegan out there because it can be a lot cheaper! The only things that are cheaper there are booze and weed.

I honestly do not know where they find people to fill low skilled low paying jobs. I visited in February and took an Uber home from the bar one night. The driver was a retired psychologist. I suppose that is one place to find such labor. Retirees looking for some extra cash and something to do. Teenagers too. But even for more professional jobs like cops or teachers, I just don't see how they do it but suspect that there are RV parks similar to the ones described in the article in the less desirable neighborhoods in nearby Santa Rosa.

As an economic trend, what we are seeing in California is something we have been seeing for decades.. Their high housing costs are related to geographic trends of widening inequality. It is related to California's concentrations in sectors doing well and which employ highly skilled and highly paid people. The cost of living is higher but there a lot more 6 figure programming gigs in California than there are in Michigan! Those people need housing and they simply dont have the income limitations so many others have. That drives up housing costs (although California NIMBY attitudes such as those preventing more dense development are to blame too)

I have seen this from a POV of a declining area which is why my house is worth less than what I paid for it 15 years ago. In contrast, I have friends who moved to California around the same time whose house there appreciated so much that they were able to sell it and buy a house for cash in Detroit.

 

[slynne]

Oh but it so fun to troll Californians. Last time I was there I told a whole room full of people that granite and thus granite countertops are radioactive. There were gasps followed by frantic googling (which confirmed my statement https://www.epa.gov/radiation/granite-countertops-and-radiation). It was hilarious!!!

Luckily as a visitor, I don't have to worry how the state is run although I have to say although I dont like how my state is run, that isnt what makes makes me want to leave. It is winter. California is just amazing in the winter. The coastline is breathtaking. The mountains are beautiful. I genuinely like the people even though I do find their culture worthy of mocking sometimes. It really does come from a place of love just like it does when they mock me for my Michigan ways....

Them: "what do you mean the jack is higher than an ace? you people are playing with half a deck *and* you're nuts!!"
Me: "You've been Euchred!!!"

Them: "That isn't a party store that is a liquor store. party stores sell streamers and confetti. Why are you calling that a party store?"
Me:" I don't know what kinds of parties you Californians have but in Michigan we have beer and potato chips!"