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Must be the engineer in me, but the first thing I noticed about that nice photo above is the disjointed bridge. Out of curiosity, where is that?
Charles:
Good eyes.
What your looking at in the distance…is the old Bahia Honda Rail Bridge in the lower Florida Keys connecting Bahia Honda Key with Spanish Harbor. It hasn’t been used since the 1930’s. Today the area is mostly part of the huge Bahia Honda State Park …about 40 miles east of Key West. The park is really an amazing place in the middle of winter; 100 – foot coconut palms tower overhead and sway in the sea breeze against a backdrop of turquoise water, a blinding sheet of white sand, and a cloudless sky. A typical day in winter will find the temp near 80 F. There is a lot of history to this spot
Henry Flagler who owned the Standard Oil Company with John D. Rockefeller in 1904 extended the rail line. Flagler’s vision of the railroad beyond Miami was in anticipation of the growing shipping commerce he thought would be created when the Panama Canal opened in the early years. Flager thought it would benefit America to have a tropical deep water port for shipping to the mainland USA. I think the rail bridge hasn’t been used since the 1940’s.
This is the Overseas Highway today. There are 42 bridges that connect the islands and Key West. Along much of the ride on the Overseas Highway you see the old rail (they run parallel).This is really one of the most beautiful and unique roads in the USA. You feel like you could just keep driving and end up in Kingston, Jamaica (lol).
Of course it all ends in America’s southernmost city in the lower 48…Key West, Florida. Once you enter Key West you feel like you have left the stress of the USA and are in a small Caribbean city- lol. It was my home away from California winters many times.
TW, thanks for the photos and stories from the FL Keys. I've been to all 50 states and much of FL, but I've never headed south from Miami to the keys. Need to put that one on my list for a winter vacation trip. Bahia Honda sounds great!
I find it funny when people from other states talk about the wonderful weather in Southern CA. I have lived in Orange County for 32 years, and one of the top reasons (besides the traffic congestion) I would like to move out of here is because of the extremely boring weather.
There is no change of season. During the summer the sky is hazy white from the low stratus clouds trapped by the mountains, until July. We call it May Gray / June Gloom. From August through October we are stuck in a bubble of brown smog, which you can see the best when you approach LA/OC from an outlying area. As a private pilot, I can also see this from the air. The mountains trap the clouds and smoke preventing the onshore winds from blowing it out to the desert.
After living here for a while you begin to realize this is the desert. If it were not for the supply of water diverted from the Sierra Nevada mountains through the Owens Valley, we would have parched land with little but cacti to decorate the soil. As the summer moves on with days approaching 100F, you can begin to see the roadside plants dying of thirst as the city landscapers struggle to give them enough water.
The short winter is wet and rainy with accidents on the freeway all over the place, because LA/OC drivers don't know how to drive in the rain (except for this year, when we had record low rainfall).
I can understand why people from cold climates would want to move here to escape from the freeze. But this is not the paradise weather that is so frequently advertised. The Spring and Fall season is nice, although those seasons are nice in a lot of areas of the country.
Whether you will enjoy it here could depend on your personality type. If you like a routine, predictable life, then you may love it. Besides the earthquakes and wildfires, the weather does not offer much surprise. On the other hand if you like adventure and variety, Southern CA weather is like watching the paint dry on a fence, or watching the bagle in the toaster oven.
A little bit of vartiety in nature (forests, cute wild animals, natural meadows) and weather patterns adds a little spice to life. That's mostly missing here.
This is what the smog looks like from an airplane. This layer of smog covers the Southern CA basin every summer and you can feel it in the lungs after a good excercise. How can this be ideal weather?
Haven't had time to read all 10 pages of the thread...but... this post made me laugh. The part of your quote I bolded above says it all. After 32 years of being here, you have no grasp of what weather is like in other places. LOTS of people who spend the better part of their lives here *think* the grass must be greener on the other side of the pasture. Some of them move away. When they do, after not much time, they realize they had it all wrong. I'd also like to add that your post is full of exaggerations and in some ways misrepresents reality. Live near the coast and those "summer.....days approaching 100F" are a.... MYTH! As is the notion that excercising leads one to feel something in your lungs. I don't know about the inland valleys, but I've NEVER felt that living anywhere near the coast.
I actually enjoy cloudy, damp, cool weather a lot. I feel much more secure and comfortable in 58 degrees and drizzling than I do in 88 degrees and sunny.
My ancestors are from the British Isles, and that is the weather I feel suits me best. Obviously a lot of people from England love the dry, sunny weather of SoCal...so that is more of a joke than a real reason. Whatever the reason, I enjoy it.
I don't necessarily enjoy super frigid temps all the time, though I can endure the winter here in Pittsburgh, so I am obviously a little hardier than a lot of the people in this forum.
I grew up in Sarasota Florida, and lived there for the first 23 years of my life (I am now 26). I would never want to live in the tropics again if I could avoid it. I would certainly take SoCal over FL. The heat and humidity in Florida are brutal. I honestly was always perplexed by the people who would just lie out and broil their skin in the 10+ UV with air temps of 90-95 and heat indexes of 105-125.
My ideal climate is Oceanic...like the Pacific Northwest or the United Kingdom. I love 40s-60s and damp/foggy...that is what makes me feel happy and secure. I wouldn't live in Southern California. I also love lush greenery...which we have in abundance in the Northeast.
I lived in Nashville for a year, and watched all the greenery dry up and turn brown and crunchy in the summer. We watered our plants twice a day and they still were dry and slightly brown. It was always sunny, almost no rain in the summer there. The sad part was, as dry as the plants were, the air humidity was still high...and the high temps were hotter than summer in Florida. Average highs were 90-100 during the hottest portion of the summer, we heat indexes of well over 100 most mid-summer days.
That is what SoCal is like many miles in from the coast where the Pacific has little effect...hot, dry, and sunny. Not my thing. I could deal with being right on the coast of SoCal, but I would prefer San Francisco or Seattle by far.
I actually enjoy cloudy, damp, cool weather a lot. I feel much more secure and comfortable in 58 degrees and drizzling than I do in 88 degrees and sunny.
My ancestors are from the British Isles, and that is the weather I feel suits me best. Obviously a lot of people from England love the dry, sunny weather of SoCal...so that is more of a joke than a real reason. Whatever the reason, I enjoy it.
I don't necessarily enjoy super frigid temps all the time, though I can endure the winter here in Pittsburgh, so I am obviously a little hardier than a lot of the people in this forum.
I grew up in Sarasota Florida, and lived there for the first 23 years of my life (I am now 26). I would never want to live in the tropics again if I could avoid it. I would certainly take SoCal over FL. The heat and humidity in Florida are brutal. I honestly was always perplexed by the people who would just lie out and broil their skin in the 10+ UV with air temps of 90-95 and heat indexes of 105-125.
My ideal climate is Oceanic...like the Pacific Northwest or the United Kingdom. I love 40s-60s and damp/foggy...that is what makes me feel happy and secure. I wouldn't live in Southern California. I also love lush greenery...which we have in abundance in the Northeast.
I lived in Nashville for a year, and watched all the greenery dry up and turn brown and crunchy in the summer. We watered our plants twice a day and they still were dry and slightly brown. It was always sunny, almost no rain in the summer there. The sad part was, as dry as the plants were, the air humidity was still high...and the high temps were hotter than summer in Florida. Average highs were 90-100 during the hottest portion of the summer, we heat indexes of well over 100 most mid-summer days.
That is what SoCal is like many miles in from the coast where the Pacific has little effect...hot, dry, and sunny. Not my thing. I could deal with being right on the coast of SoCal, but I would prefer San Francisco or Seattle by far.
I think that it is funny that people in England and other places in Europe are crazy about So Cal (so many of them are buying homes out here along or near the coast lately; just look at that $75 million home that was sold recently in Bel Aire to a European family), especially when they have areas with better scenery and climate than So Cal such as Coastal Spain, Southern France, Italy, and Greece.
Anyway, I agree that the humidity factor in places like Florida is unbearable. But what people out here sometimes forget is that Southern California can get very humid at times, especially in the summer. Not having AC during these periods of humidity stinks, to say the least.
I think that the biggest misconception about So Cal weather is that it is perfect year-round throughout the entire region, when in acutality, the only areas that experience the near perfect temps. regularly during the day is a thin strip along the coast from San Diego to the Central Coast. The Mediterranean temps in this strip only go a few miles inland. The rest of So Cal is dramatically cooler and warmer than this thin little area of moderate weather.
The coast itself isn't always perfect either. I currently live along the Coast in SD (city proper) and so far this Spring, it has been just as chilly during the day and night as it was back in December and January this past winter. It has yet to warm up down here (people, including myself, are still wearing hoodies & jeans! ) Anyway, So Cal weather along the coast is closer to being perfect than most other areas in the U.S., but it is definitely NOT perfect.
Obviously there is a degree of subjectivity to weather. However, I'll take sunny southern California any day. I wish more people were like you and live in colder, rainy places. To each his own.
I actually enjoy cloudy, damp, cool weather a lot. I feel much more secure and comfortable in 58 degrees and drizzling than I do in 88 degrees and sunny.
My ancestors are from the British Isles, and that is the weather I feel suits me best. Obviously a lot of people from England love the dry, sunny weather of SoCal...so that is more of a joke than a real reason. Whatever the reason, I enjoy it.
I don't necessarily enjoy super frigid temps all the time, though I can endure the winter here in Pittsburgh, so I am obviously a little hardier than a lot of the people in this forum.
I grew up in Sarasota Florida, and lived there for the first 23 years of my life (I am now 26). I would never want to live in the tropics again if I could avoid it. I would certainly take SoCal over FL. The heat and humidity in Florida are brutal. I honestly was always perplexed by the people who would just lie out and broil their skin in the 10+ UV with air temps of 90-95 and heat indexes of 105-125.
My ideal climate is Oceanic...like the Pacific Northwest or the United Kingdom. I love 40s-60s and damp/foggy...that is what makes me feel happy and secure. I wouldn't live in Southern California. I also love lush greenery...which we have in abundance in the Northeast.
I lived in Nashville for a year, and watched all the greenery dry up and turn brown and crunchy in the summer. We watered our plants twice a day and they still were dry and slightly brown. It was always sunny, almost no rain in the summer there. The sad part was, as dry as the plants were, the air humidity was still high...and the high temps were hotter than summer in Florida. Average highs were 90-100 during the hottest portion of the summer, we heat indexes of well over 100 most mid-summer days.
That is what SoCal is like many miles in from the coast where the Pacific has little effect...hot, dry, and sunny. Not my thing. I could deal with being right on the coast of SoCal, but I would prefer San Francisco or Seattle by far.
I'm born and raised here, and I, too, find it BORING as hell. As an adult, I have been exposed to other areas of the country and real seasons....and I feel deprived! I can see, if you were born and raised with freexing winters and scraping/digging your car out of the snow every winter, etc.- how you may really like it here and feel happy about not spending the time and energy doing that....but man, its boring. And, I might point out, too- kinda' ugly unless you are in the mountains (which are very pretty) or at the beach (also very pretty)....but everywhere else....where the majority of people live and spend their days.....ugly and/or boring! The only thing that saves some areas is the mature landscaping, but even then- its landscaping in the center median parkway or the sides of major streets....there are no wooded patched of forest preserve or lakes, etc.
1) I'm born and raised here, and I, too, find it BORING as hell. As an adult, I have been exposed to other areas of the country and real seasons....and I feel deprived! I can see, if you were born and raised with freexing winters and scraping/digging your car out of the snow every winter, etc.- how you may really like it here and feel happy about not spending the time and energy doing that....but man, its boring.
2) And, I might point out, too- kinda' ugly unless you are in the mountains (which are very pretty) or at the beach (also very pretty)....but everywhere else....where the majority of people live and spend their days.....ugly and/or boring! The only thing that saves some areas is the mature landscaping, but even then- its landscaping in the center median parkway or the sides of major streets....there are no wooded patched of forest preserve or lakes, etc.
1) I grew up in LA County but lived on the east coast as an adult for about 5 years (NYC/Wash, D.C.). Trust me, try moving away for a few years and you will WELCOME the boredom you currently hate. At least that is how it happened for me. The summers back east are WORSE than the winters (though I didn't care for the winters either).
2) Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The SoCalif. landscape is very UNIQUE. Nothing like it in the United States: Deserts, Mountains, and Ocean in one place. The tallest mountain peak in New York state is only 5,344 feet. Mt Whitney is over 14,000 feet and there are several peaks in LA County over 10,000 feet. Mt. San Gorgonio is over 11,000 feet high and overlooks a desert. Very FEW places on earth like that. Or try hiking Temescal Canyon near Santa Monica....there is even a small waterfall, vegetation is pretty lush, and there is an ocean overlook at the top. On a very clear day you can see Catalina Island.
Yes, we do NOT have the green or tree coverage like say New England or the Southeast. A tip of the hat to them for that. It comes with cold winters (new england) and very hot, humid summers (southeast).
Finally, LA County which developed earlier than OC has some very nice tree-lined communities such as Pasadena, So. Pasadena, Holmby Hills, Hancock Park, etc.
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) Anyway, So Cal weather along the coast is closer to being perfect than most other areas in the U.S., but it is definitely NOT perfect.
