HWY 1 Road Trip Secret Gardens, Hidden Nurseries?

when did you live in California? Do you like Cincinnati? I used to live in the Cleveland area in Lorrain County, my ucle is a pastor of a four square church in Cin. Ohio is so beautiful compared to here in so many ways but it can be monotonously green and closed in on a long drive. Here can be the same but brown, desert, but open as far as the eye can see in all directions. The thing that is good here in Cal. is that in a 7 hour drive your scenery can completely change appearance 200 times, unless your going to Vegas lol. What do you think?

I know you were directing your question to Tabasco, but I'll chime in too--I grew up in Cleveland, then I lived in Cincinnati for 5 years before I moved out here! I like CA better than Ohio (except for the cost of living of course!) but I think if I lived in the desert I might feel differently!

Hellnzn11--thanks for asking.

Yes, we like Cincinnati. It is very 'easy' to live here and we have been able to do lots of interesting things. MY DH likes his work a lot, the airport is about 20 minutes from the house, and we only have to get there 1 hour ahead of time, And we are in the same time zone as New York and Washington, DC (can go and return in one day). There have been other 'percs' too that have been fun.

Hi, ecrane--we lived in the East Bay (Walnut Creek) when our children were little--about 24 years ago--very pretty area and not as populated as it is now. I always marvelled at the change in temperature between there and the tunnel into The City. What a difference. We also lived in SF for 8 years right in the city before we moved south to Pasadena. Our daughter lives in Pacific Heights now.

We like CA and we miss our friends a lot but we were ready for a change--we wanted less traffic, smaller crowds, easier commutes, more greenspace (we definitely got that!) that sort of thing. (And my blood pressure has dropped about 30 points and my DH is home for dinner every night!)

We love our visits there, though, and go back several times a year. Well, 'nuff about me!

Hope you all are doing great! And I look forward to my next trip down the Big Sur!

I bet Walnut Creek was quite different back then! I would love to have less people and less traffic (although my blood pressure has gone down a lot since I moved closer to work at the beginning of the summer!) But I love it out here and I'm not ready to come back yet, although someday I might because my family is all still in Cleveland and I would love to see them more than I do, plus every once in a while I think about the gorgeous house on many acres of land that I could buy if I sold this place and moved back!

I still have some friends in Cincy, but I don't stay in touch with them as much as I used to and I haven't been back there since I came out here (except for a layover or two in the airport on my way to Cleveland). I never lived in Anderson Twp while I was there, but I lived pretty much everywhere else! (Fairfield, Landen, Mariemont, Loveland, Montgomery...and I was only there 5 years!)

Yes Walnut Creek and the Bay Area was not so crowded then-- My DH, our babies and I would drive up to the wineries in Sonoma and Napa--some of the big ones (now) were start-up operations in garages and you had to ring a bell to get the owners to come out.

You could taste any of the wines they made and say to them something like..."Oh, let's see, we'd like to taste that cabernet that won the gold medals at the Napa fair...?" and they would pull it out and pour it for you (for free!!) and be happy you asked!. That was maybe 25 or 30 years ago. Before your time, I think. We should have bought some land there but we were broke just making our house payments.

Sounds like you tried out a lot of homes in Cincy! We had quite a search here, too, Anderson is a little off the beaten path, but close to downtown and the airports, and I think we will stay in this house for a while. Now I can't bear to leave all of my plants and butterflies and hummingbirds!





This message was edited Aug 21, 2006 8:35 AM

Ecrane it is always nice to meet Buckeyes, you too Tobasco, you are one too now. I still have family in Olmstead Falls.but I haven`t visited ther e since my uncle died 6 years ago and my grandma moved to Bethesda to be close to my aunt. I love to visit Ohio to see the big houses, seperated by woods and to catch the fall or a good thunder and lightning storm. You both know that nothing even slightly compares to the storms over there, here in California. I love old Pasadena. It is so expensive there though. Where is Dublin? My husband too would like to move to a slower, prettier place, someplace like North Carolina where Nascar is big. I don`t know about that until I see what my kids are going to do. I don`t know if I could live where I would be so far out of their lives. My daughter just turned 21 and my son is a senior. I would miss them too much, but if they do their own thing and seldom come around then I might rethink it.

I have to say I don't miss the thunderstorms at all! Anyway, I have to go back to Cleveland a couple times a year to visit my family, so I get to see storms, snow etc then! I'm the only one from my family who escaped out here, everyone else is still back there. I do wish I was closer sometimes, but I love CA too much to move back just yet!

Dublin is about 20 miles southeast of Oakland in the Bay Area--far enough inland that we get more heat and less fog than there is at the coast, plus a bit of occasional frost in the winter to kill my precious plants!

We get snow here too sometimes for a day but it goes, no shoveling, I love it. I can not believe you don`t miss the thunder and lightning, I moved to Cal when I was a month away from 11 and I am 43 now and never stopped missing that smell. I don`t miss the night crawlers though. I love California too because despite some of the cool things back east that are obvious, here we can do anything we want in about 3 hours or less almost without exception 365 days a year.

This thread is on my "thread watch" from when we were planning our California trip back in June.I am chiming in because I just got back from spending a week in Cleveland with one of my best friends who's family has lived there for generations.There was so much to do and see.The weather was good (luck played a big part in that) and we spent alot of time outdoors (something I don't do alot of in the summer down here).I fell in love with the houses from the 1900-1920's and the prices are so low (not good for the oeople who live there) There is also some really good bargain clothes shopping.Dillard's outlet and Gabriel's.I met some people at the Arboretum (wonderful place with lots of great programs) who said that Cleveland is one of the best kept secrets in the summer.

The first time we ever visited Northern California was in the early 70's.What a change!It is still magnificent but there are so many people.Everyone wants to live in paradise.

Nancy

Yes, Cleveland is a wonderful city and often overlooked by those with their eye on living on either of the coasts. I used to visit Cleveland with my mom for the (world renowned) orchestra and the art museum (and the rock n roll museum). (I wish I had a friend there to visit now!) Beautiful suburbs. People forget the Rockefellers are from there and have endowed so many things. The economy in Ohio could be better, though!

I heard from my son who was visiting LA last winter that there were some fantastic thunder storms there last winter! He said he was really afraid (he's 24!). Although that was highly unusual for CA. My kids didn't see snow until they were about 12 I think. And they didn't know what a thunderstorm was until we drove cross country and experienced one in Kansas one summer! We were scared out of our minds!

Funny thing was, we experienced our first earth quake right here in Ohio one summer years ago when we were visiting in Dayton, Ohio. Very scary too!

My daughter in SF just e-mailed me that she took a run around the neighborhood today and had to have a scarf and gloves! People forget that about SF CA!

I waited until I was almost 30 to move to CA, so maybe that's why I don't miss the storms and the snow--I think if I'd moved here at 11 I might have missed some of that stuff more. Or maybe it was my years in grad school in Indiana hiding in the basement during storms when we heard on the news that there was a tornado coming up the highway heading right towards us. Or the F4 (or was it F5?) tornado that hit Cincy a few years back that was less than a mile from my apartment!

I too experienced my first earthquake in Ohio! It was many years ago, I was in about 8th grade or so and had just gotten my wisdom teeth pulled, and I remember being home from school and the plates and glasses in the house started rattling. It wasn't a very scary one though!

ecrane--where did you go to grad school? ND?

Nope--I went to Indiana U. in Bloomington. Very pretty part of Indiana--lots of hills and stuff, not like the northern half where it's all flat.

How funny that you guys both were in probably the only noteworthy earthquake Ohio has ever had, to my knowledge. My friend came out here from Elyria(do you guys know where that is?) just before the Northridge quake but she was afraid the whole time she was here, that we`d have one, however she was in one at a Reds game,if I`m not mistaken, she said it was terrifying. I imagine that I`d be a bit nervous to be in one there. That one was on the news here too. Boy this thread has taken a left turn ha?

LOL, well, I started the thread, so it's OK this time to be OT!

I do know where Elyria is--never been there but I know of it! I have to say that anyone who was terrified by a quake they felt in Ohio should probably never move to CA! I don't think they've ever had anything there over a 4.0, and those aren't scary--just a little jerk and shake and then they're done. But I guess stuff out there isn't built to handle earthquakes of any sort, so maybe it would be scary! Especially if you're in a stadium full of people who might panic...

Interesting the number of earthquakes reported in OH. Only a few above 4.

The OH Dept. of Nat. Resources Seismic site with FAQs:

http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/OhioSeis/

Richter, inventor of the Richter scale, was from Ohio. Did he know something we don't?!

ecrane-- you are very brave. We were up in the SF area for the big earthquake several years ago and it was very scary for us. We drove across the Bay Bridge and were heading south (along the San Andreas back to LA) just hours before the bridge collapsed.

Down south, the earthquakes whose epicenters were in Pasadena/Sierra Madre, even though 4's, were very scary for us, too. Some were insignificant too, though.

My son (when he was about 10 ) and several of his LA classmates went to Culver Academy Summer Camp in Indiana one summer-- the first night they were there there was a tornado that came onto the lake and very near the camp. They were scared witless and all called 'Mom' to be picked up and returned home! Didn't do it, though. They thought the IN Tornedo was much worse than the CA Earthquakes! They still talk about it. Beautiful country up around Culver, Indiana.

My friend lived on one side of the bridge and her job was on the other side in the Bay area and she became phoebic after that and moved back to Lancaster/palmdale. The scariest one I was in was the Whittier Narrows one because I lived in an upstairs apartment in Canoga Park and they kept coming and it was right after the Mexico city so all the hispanic people were screaming and crying, afraid it was a precurser to the big one and a little boy was frozen screaming on the stair case in front of my apartment but I was naked and hesitated before I ran out to get him, luckily before I opened the door ,it was over. Northridge I was in Tecate Mexico, on the border of Cal. @ my X`s grandma`s funeral so we did not feel it but it was horrible because we knew there was an earthquake because the phone co. kept playing a message about why we couldn`t get through to my X`s job, because of the earthquake in the area. We had to take the 15 frwy. home along with every truck and person needing to head North because of the 14? I-5 bridge collapse, listening to nothing but earthquake stories and updates for hours,going home and not knowing what you were going to find. That was a creepy one. Usually I love them because it breaks up the monotony of a day and everybodies talking about it, it`s exciting. Northridge was creepy, the aftermath lasted YEARS. Tornados are more scary and I don`t blame your kids for freaking out while camping in one.

I was lucky, I didn't live out here yet in '89 when that big one came that knocked out the Bay Bridge, the biggest ones I've felt out here have been ~4 or so (knock on wood!). My old office at work was on the 3rd floor of our building, and for a while there were these earthquake clusters going on with the Calaveras fault (which runs right down the highway next to my building), nothing above 3-ish, but definitely magnified a bit by being on the 3rd floor, plus there were just a lot of them! So that was a little weird. Then there was the bigger one (6-7?) in Paso Robles about two years ago, that one was strange because the shaking wasn't felt very strongly up here, but it kept going for much longer than usual, so you could tell that it was a big earthquake somewhere. Normally by the time you feel the earthquake and think, was that an earthquake, it's already over, but that time I had time to think about whether I ought to do what you're supposed to do in an earthquake and crawl under my desk, usually it's over before you have time to think about that!

Ah, yes, some are worse than others depending on where you are at the time. Whittier Narrows was scary--our chimney fell on our house on that one. Northridge was scary too. So many homes were ruined. We did not have much damage that time. Mostly broken dishes .

San Francisco/Bay Area was a mess after that big earthquake for years, but now it seems better than before, at least down around Market & The Embarcadero where my DH has his offices (no Embarcadero Freeway to clutter up the view). It took us forever to get back into LA that night from SF.

Oh my gosh, I typed this big thing and my hand accidently clicked delete and I couldn`t get the page on the back button and I couldn`t remember what forum this was on.%$@#!
What a crack head I am, goodness.(JOKE) Well I was saying that the Pasa Robles and NR quakes were both those jolting ones, they seem to be the deadly ones. I moved out here a year after the Sylmar one, that was rolling and did a lot of damage but codes weren`t the same then. I lived on Lake Erie and we saw funnel clouds go over alot but my mom said they wouldn`t turn in torn/ that close to the lake? Hmmmm. I saw the aftermath of a small one when I lived in Oberlin but it hit 8 blocks or so away and I had no idea until the next day when my grandma made me go see her friends house with a tree on it.

I saw waterspouts over Lake Erie a few times at a friend's house during storms, never saw them take a turn toward land though. I'm not sure if there's something preventing them from going from the water to the land but I wouldn't think so? I had to drive past the aftermath of the big one that hit Cincy every day on my way to work for a while--pretty scary given how close it was to where I lived, but I slept right through the whole thing because the tornado sirens in my county either didn't exist or were broken or something. Even scarier, there was a house that I almost rented which was basically right in the middle of where the tornado went and tore everything apart--thank heavens I decided to live somewhere else!

thank heavens

Yes, thank heavens.

I took a real estate class once where the instructor said earthquakes and tornados (and hurricanes) were "God's urban renewal". Kind of a tough way to do it, I'd say, but it gets the job done. Yikes!

Yes, I imagine that is true. That Tseunami was quite an urban renewal ha? I know a lady that is my friends friend, that was supposed to be staying in that hotel that got swept into the waves and her room was in that part, but she cancelled at the last moment because she had just had lipo and a face lift and tummy tuck ( though she weighs all of 90 lbs.) and was going to be too soon after so she cancelled. whooo.