I have started finding myself more and more attracted to the idea of living in a more remote area rather than in the city or immediate suburbs. As much as I love my cities and have lived in LA, NYC, and Sydney, I have also found immense joy from escaping the crowded, fast-paced, always connected lifestyle that we all live in now. I don't know if I could really live too far off the grid - I'm not about to go run off to the middle of no where. But there are some nice areas in Central California that are about 30 minutes from a real town - close enough to get groceries and get to the airport, but far enough that you aren't bothered. I would rather be on a piece of land that's separated from most people but within reasonable driving distance to a city than live in a small town though. Too much drama and interpersonal relationships when you get to small towns. I dislike the concept of everyone knowing all my business. I would love to build a dream house on a huge piece of land, lots of space, maybe a couple cows because cows are fucking awesome Go into town once a week, get groceries, freelance or telecommute from home, I could even see me with a couple little ones running around or on ATVs or something. Maybe I'm just overly stressed from work, or sick of being surrounded by million dollar homes that I know I will never be able to own, but it's been on my mind a lot lately. There are some ranches and farms on the Jalama Beach Road that seem just about perfect. 30 minutes from Lompoc, 45 from Goleta/Santa Barbara. And they have cows. I'm really falling in love with the greater Santa Barbara area - I always partied there since a ton of my friends went to UCSB, but it's such a great location once you look past the college party animals - less traffic than LA, mountains and a lake on one side, state beaches on the other. We took a detour (aka got lost) and ended up driving through these windy roads above SB with immense gated houses and glorious views. My Zillow app told me the houses were 10m-30m range. Even if I could magically afford it, it seems way too upscale for my taste. But the houses were gorgeous, albeit fucking huge. If you are bored, jump onto street view on the above link and check them out. Insane. As for the remote living - huge property with nice homey-house - I don't know if it'll ever happen. I'll probably get over this little fantasy in a bit. But right now it sounds phenomenal. It's actually more realistic than owning a home in the city I live in. Does anyone else have fantasies like this? Is anyone here from a remote area - do you love it or want to live in the big city?
You owe it to yourself to take a week driving up the 1. Lompoc rules, but Cambria is nicer. As is Morro Bay. I adore Pismo. Monterey? Shit doesn't really get real until you're through the Presidio and onto the other side; the stretch through Caspar and Ft. Bragg makes the "happy cows come from California" ads seem true. The Mendocino Coast redefines "bucolic."I'm really falling in love with the greater Santa Barbara area - I always partied there since a ton of my friends went to UCSB, but it's such a great location once you look past the college party animals - less traffic than LA, mountains and a lake on one side, state beaches on the other.
I found the town of Lompoc a bit trashy, but it was 4th of July and I had fireworks so I was happy, and so were the rest of the drunk firework setting-off families. I really want to take a good chunk of time off and do a real drive up the coast with no destination or time constraints, just wandering and exploring and taking in the majestic views. We drove the 1 instead of the 101 the last time we went to Jalama and it was gorgeous. We stopped off in Carpenteria & Summerland to get gas and do a bit of exploring - see the views and the beaches. I would be so satisfied if I could do that all the way up the coast. Summerland is the most adorable little thing -, antique shops, surf boutiques, summer cottages on a hill, with the most badass liquor store gas station combo. I found a $100 bottle of mezcal in their damn gas station! Thanks for the advice. I cant wait to explore. I'll definitely reach out to you when I get my time off request approved. It's going to be a bit though. Maybe in the spring :/
That was my bachelor party to myself. Swine Flu was in the news and I needed to get married in a week. I was in Los Angeles and my wife was in Seattle. I had a few days on a Davis Guggenheim documentary, but I opted to drive my Dodge Stealth up the coast the slow way instead. Took five days, I think. Went to the Monterey Aquarium (the first place I realized that such things are more interesting with children, therefore it might be worth having one), the Tillamook Air Museum, stopped wherever I wanted to. Oddly enough, because I was doing research for a script, I had the first five books in the Left Behind series on audio. Kinda wild - ripping up the coast listening to the Christian Apocalypse while giving the overblown concerns of CNN enough credo to force me to do what I really wanted to in the first place.
Oh dear, the cows again. :) Cows are pretty dope though, fairly gentle for large animals, but if had to be honest, my heart is with pigs. As pets, of course. I used to have this guy in my life, but I had to sell him because he went from 1 kg to 100 kg in 10 months: Man, I wish I never had to sell that dude. I truly, truly loved the fuck out of that pig, even though he ate my phone. Lock, stock and barrel. Like I said, I think I'm a city guy at heart, but I'm from the woods. I'd love to have a great community around me, with enough space that we could breathe but still be neighborly and have services and rub elbows. Such a place, to my knowledge, does not exist. But I think fantasy is important, as it can shape our real life choices.
Awwwww oink oink Now I might want a pig! Besides being absolutely adorable when they are young, and massive when they grow up, I've heard they come in handy if you've ever got a dead body on your hand... (Hahahah I've been on a good cow streak this week, haven't I? Of course all the cow stuff stems from the single vacation last weekend. It's not like I'm constantly obsessing about cows...and the things they do...)
Uh huh, yeah, ok. :) Honestly, favorite pet ever. Did you know that if a pig trusts and likes you, that if you scratch its belly, it will just fall over and oink for you to scratch it some more? It will. And while you are scratching it, it will stealthily steal your heart . . .
Our old roommate had a bulldog that would do the same thing. She was fat and slobbery and smelled but the second she rolled over, tongue lagging out, steadily snorting, raising her head to make sure I saw her and her now-upside-down un-doopy eyes staring at me like she was a cokehead and I was holding a new bag of coke, none of it mattered and I just wanted to scratch it until it's chubby little legs were twitching so fast and she was snorting so intensely that she might pass out from sheer, unadulterated joy. Here's two videos: 1 2 Under my giggles, you can hear her snorts. I think yours was probably still better. When I move onto my fantasy farm and have my own fantasy cow and fantasy piggy, you'll have to visit.
Haha, I've always liked bulldogs. I tried to take a high school friend's bulldog swimming in her pool one time and it didn't work out so well. The bulldog was perfectly fine, but when it jumped in the pool it sank like a stone. My pig (Squeak) not only loved belly scratching, but if I opened a beer, I'd immediately hear hooves pounding my way. That pig absolutely loved beer and if I let him get into the whiskey, he'd run all around the house and the yard. Pigs can run a lot faster that you'd think, because most of the time they're so lazy. They're also really, really strong for their size. Once I came home and he'd busted open a section of the concrete balcony and bent a piece of rebar up and was suckling on it. If he wanted his head scratched and I wasn't paying attention to him, he'd scoop my foot up with his snout and start rubbing his head on the bottom of my foot until I took over. I would love to live in a place where I could have a bunch of animal pals! Unfortunately, that's (obviously) a downside to living in a place with lots of people around. I figured out that what I call "farm smell" is mostly pig and cow pee, but somehow if it's my animal, then it's perfectly ok by me. If your fantasy farm happens, then I would most definitely visit if I could hang out with some animals.