Life in North County

And so, yes, I've moved, if you haven't heard and/or already figured that out.  It was quite a task, to say the least, but I think moving across country almost always is.  It's certainly a lot more daunting of a task if you move yourself but then again it's also considerably cheaper.  In hindset, just my 2 cents, of course, but driving the Penske moving truck was probably the easiest part of the whole process so I personally see little reason to pay someone else a large sum of money to do this fairly straight forward task.  Ah, but that's me.

The drive out in my car over New Years was pretty straight forward except for a possible weirdo that was following me for quite some time that really put me on my guard.  Guess where he was from?  Yep, Minnesota, per his license plate.  He even darted off of the freeway at the last second, nearly hitting the median, when he saw that I put my blinker on to exit the freeway and then proceeded to follow me to the gas station.  Not long after that, he struck up a goofy brief conversation at the pump and then proceeded to follow me into the bathroom.  I did my best to hurry out of the bathroom and gas station without looking too obvious but he once again followed me back to the pumps and then onto the freeway.  I've seen one too many movies like "Zodiac" that simply told me to keep my guard up at all costs, of which I did and then did my best to distance myself from him by slowing down and sticking behind another traveller.  He may have just been an overly zealous Minnesotan hoping to ride alongside another former Minnesotan but you just can't be too careful these days.

That was the weirdest thing that happened.  On the lighter side, I guess I will not deny that I let out quite a big cheer when I passed into the Iowa State border from Minnesota.  Iowa isn't really much more to look at but at least it was progress in the right direction, in my head at least.  It really wasn't until I reached Colorado that I truly started breathing a sigh of relief, one that was about 10 years in the making.  Leaving the midwest behind me was definitely a reason to celebrate as far as I was concerned, and no matter what the future holds, I really hope to not have to ever drive again with the midwest being my final destination.

Oddly, Minnesota, in it's usual "Minnesota" sort of way, is one of the few states I've ever encountered that not only has a "Welcome to Minnesota" sign but also has a "Thanks for visiting Minnesota" sign just slightly before the "Welcome to Iowa" sign.  It might just be my personal bias but this seems to have that typical Minnesota "we're the best at everything" sort of mentality, as if to say, "Um, you're about to leave the wonderful state of Minnesota.  Are you sure you want to do that?  Huh?  Huh??  And, why would you ever want to leave?!  Are you crazy?!!"  Yeah, that's pretty much how I view Minnesota in a nutshell.  The very amusing part is that Minnesotans basically look down on Iowa as a worthless flyover zone; in passing into the state of Iowa, it looks to me like, well, Minnesota, just without the attitude.  'Nuff said on that topic.

I also had my first ever emergency whizz off the freeway.  I was patiently waiting to get to a gas station and over about a 20 minute time frame, when no stations were in sight, it became literally painfully obvious that I wasn't going to make it.  I seriously waited until I realized that I was about to pee my pants that I finally pulled over and in broad daylight watered the desert shrubery.  The next gas station of course ended up being only 10 minutes away but I seriously would have never made it.

And so, how is life in North County?  Yep, spoken like a native!  I quickly learned that when you say "San Diego" people usually mean county, not city.  So, we're all San Diegoan's here, apparently, since everything south of Camp Pendleton is in San Diego county.  To differentiate, we're in the northern part of the county and so...  I'm sure you get the drift.

I'd say life is good in North County.  It's amazing how quickly you forget about snow, weather, etc., not to mention, well, Minnesota.  I've done everything I can to shed pretty much any tie I might have had with my former state, even going so far as to instruct new acquaintances to never say that I'm "from" Minnesota...it was just a mistake, 'er, I mean, place that I lived for awhile.  In fact, it's best that we simply don't talk about it at all.

North County is so far pretty much as I had imagined it, though.  It's not completely unlike the look of Phoenix, my former former place of residency, coupled with the look and feel of south Orange County, ala San Clemente.  So far, I have no mega complaints except for things like I wish the roads were a bit smoother and traffic wasn't quite as heavy as it can be at times.  I am certainly enjoying being able to eat decent food again, though, and I can't say enough how joyous it is to have chips and guacamole once again on a regular basis, even if it does give me mega heart burn and will probably eventually be the death of me.

Apart from that, I'm just settling in to my surroundings, getting things put away (ah, the endless unpacking), and so on.  Life in North County is so far so good.  Now, ask me in 6 months and we'll see how it's goin' ;)