[fintstone]

Once again, California has great beauty (as does almost every state)...especially at national parks, etc...which we have acknowledged since the start of the thread. There is a reason why most of the photos posted are relatively devoid of people. No one actually works or lives there. You might as well take photos of Beverly Hills. I lived in CA...and it was a very hard daily grind for most people. Hard to afford a nice place to live, hard to commute (traffic), hard to shop (crowds). Dirty, lot of crime, panhandlers, etc. Good restaurants but really expensive. Maybe people who grew up there are just used to it. Maybe rich people had it better. My life improved significantly upon leaving.

One can take a hike or a cool photo of nature, a Porsche or motorcycle almost anywhere. There are vineyards and fields of vegetables. They are not limited to CA. The homeless encampments, feces and needles on the street, are really not all that common elsewhere. They are as big a shock to folks from elsewhere as the beaches. If one does not see problems in paradise, they are wearing rose colored glasses. It could and should be so much better. With the natural beauty, the natural resources and the ports, etc. that CA has, it is hard to understand why things have become as they are. While there is great opportunity, there is incredible hardship. It is incredibly wealthy yet many largely rely on illegal labor to maintain lifestyle. I was shocked that they made me pay for gas before pumping it (the first time I went there)...because people drove off without paying...or that there were neighborhoods where it was simply not safe to drive. Folks there probably think that normal. It is not normal in a lot of places. It is the best and worst of worlds.

It is not just the homeless encampments. This is what many CA residents see every day...it is where many CA residents live. Not where the Brady Bunch or Baywatch were filmed: