In Visalia, because fuck if I'm going to take the same route between SoCal and the PNW twice if I can help it (Options remaining...
In Visalia, because fuck if I’m going to take the same route between SoCal and the PNW twice if I can help it
(Options remaining after this trip are US 101 and US 97-CA 89-CA 70-CA 49, past that I’m just zigzagging around stitching different fresh segments together)
I was heading for a Motel 6 when I saw a place with much more character and stopped. They had young cats in the lobby. Good call.
Visalia reminds me of what I hear about Bend before it blew up, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it followed the same path.
“Bend blew up”
Oh, wow, there’s like 80,000 people there now and the theater reopened, amazing. “Ain’t no big thing but it’s growing!” Visalia is already bigger than Bend. This is the most obnoxiously boosterish post you have ever made, and you’re the archetype of obnoxious boosterism on Tumblr.
Well that was so clearly not really about me that I won’t take it personally. The thing about Bend lately isn’t so much population growth per se, but up-classing, now all the new houses are mansions and the old houses are priced at coastal city rates.
Bend had a pre-existing infrastructure and urban character as the dominant city of a hot, dry farming region; the low cost of living and proximity to outdoor recreation made it an appealing alternative to major cities; now increasingly it’s a rich-people town
And Visalia has, well, most of the same starting conditions – it’s not as right up against parkland as Bend (which means there’s more room for cheaper growth) but it’s got an intact downtown and a bit of tourist economy, but you can still get a ranch house for a price that starts with 1. It’s not where Bend is yet, but it could get there.
It’s not exactly the same, but think about how the story of Aspen and Telluride going from mining towns to hippie outdoor recreation towns to rich-people towns was not really a story about population growth