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CALIFORNIA
The allure of Califroania understandable.
It really is warm and sunny most of the year,
movie stars do abound in Los Angeles, and you
can't swing a cat by its tail without hitting
a rollerblading babe in Venice Beach. This part
of the California mystique -- however exaggerated
it may be -- does exist, and it's not hard to
find.
But there's more -- a lot more -- to California
that isn't scripted, sanitized, and broadcast
to the world's mesmerized masses. Beyond the glitter
and glamour is an incredibly diverse state that,
if it ever seceded from the Union, would be a
productive and powerful nation. We've got it all:
redwood forests, an incredibly verdant Central
Valley, the Sierra Nevada mountains, deserts,
a host of world-renowned cities, and hundreds
of miles of stunning coastline.
In some ways, the west coast is the ultimate "now"
society. Anywhere so vulnerable to the constant
threat of the Big One – a massive earthquake of
unimaginable terror – is bound to have a sense
of living for the moment. However, its supposed
superficiality is largely fictitious. Although
home to such reactionary figures as Ronald Reagan
and Richard Nixon, it has also been the source
of some of the country's most progressive political
movements. The fierce protests of the Sixties
may have died down, but California remains the
heart of liberal America, at the forefront of
environmental awareness, gay pride and social
permissiveness, and increasingly a bulwark of
the Democratic Party. Economically, too, the region
is crucial, whether in the film industry, the
music business, the financial markets, or the
all-consuming sector of real-estate development.
California is too large to be fully explored in
a single trip, but in an area so varied it's hard
to pick out specific highlights. Los Angeles is
far and away the biggest and most stimulating
city: a maddening collection of freeways, beaches,
seedy suburbs, upscale neighborhoods and extreme
lifestyles. From Los Angeles you can head south
to the growing metropolis of San Diego, with its
broad, welcoming beaches and easy access to Mexico;
or push inland to the desert areas, most notably
Death Valley, a barren and inhospitable landscape
of volcanic craters and salt pans that in summer
becomes the hottest place on earth.
Most people, though, follow the shoreline north
up the central coast: a gorgeous run that takes
in lively small towns like Santa Barbara and Santa
Cruz. California's second city, San Francisco,
at the top end, is about as different from LA
as it's possible to get: the oldest, most European-styled
city in the state, set on a series of steep hills,
its wooden houses tumbling down to water on three
sides. It is also well placed for the national
parks to the east, such as Yosemite, where waterfalls
cascade into a sheer glacial valley, and Sequoia/Kings
Canyon with its gigantic trees, as well as the
ghost towns of the Gold Country. North of San
Francisco the countryside becomes wilder, wetter
and greener, approaching Oregon through spectacular
and almost deserted volcanic tablelands.
The climate in southern California consists of
seemingly endless days of sunshine and warm dry
nights, with occasional bouts of torrential flooding
in the winter. LA's notorious smog is at its worst
when the temperatures are highest, from July through
September. All along the coast mornings can be
hazily overcast, especially in May and June; in
exposed San Francisco it can be chilly all year,
and fog rolls in to ruin many a sunny day. Much
more so than in the south, winter in northern
California can bring rain for weeks on end, causing
massive mudslides that wipe out roads and hillside
homes. Most hiking trails in the mountains are
blocked between October and June by the snow that
keeps California's ski slopes among the busiest
in the nation.
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view Vacation Rental Homes in California click
here.
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