My Impressions of California

As we started out for California, I had a healthy skepticism about what we’d find there. My parents always talked it down, as in, “Oh, those California people think they’re so great, and they’re not.” They defended our Jersey home turf (largely because they knew nothing else). I wasn’t that rigid, but as we progressed westward, I maintained a strict show-me attitude of, “California is going to have to demonstrate some great things before I cast my lot.” I got tired of hearing drivers talk it up—I’m specifically thinking of the female psychology student in Illinois who dropped us off at Starved Rock State Park, who said, “California is the closest thing we have to a utopia.” Talk like that wore on me fast. Could what she described be true? The curiosity was there. It turned out what I saw I DID like. Starting from the Sierra Nevada mountains, and the campsite I proposed for ourselves across the border, near Truckee (which Otto  nixed), I slowed turned over. The sense of individualism and freedom, the wide-open spaces, the cultural diversity, the mountains and coastline, the enormity of lifestyles, opinions, and attitudes, began to add up for me. The day after Disneyland (page 237) I looked in the mirror and said, “Admit it, Winans—you like ‘Fornia.  Fess up.  It’s grown on you. Admit it” That became my opinion. It took a few weeks, but I was won over in a big way, which resonates to the current.  California is still one of my favorite states and favorite places to visit—even if it seems like you’re on perpetual vacation.