It looks like we're moving to Palmdale, CA (not because of Trump). Anyone know the area?

In My Humble Opinion
1

There’s about a 95% chance my husband is getting orders to the Palmdale area next year. Assuming it happens, we’ll be there three years. I’ve actually never been to California, and we’re looking forward to exploring that part of the country. It looks like Palmdale and surrounding areas are kinda desert meh, which is not my preferred landscape, but whatever. He’ll be working at the ominous-sounding “Plant 42.”

Anyone ever lived out there? We’ll be either buying a fixer-upper house, or, more likely, some land and building a house.

We don’t have kids, just dogs.

I don’t really have any specific questions, just thought I’d throw it out there, see if anyone has any thoughts to share.

2

It’s in the high desert north of LA. I went up there once many years ago for a rave. It wasn’t fun. It gets cold. Haven’t had a reason to go back. There seems to be a large population that live up there because it is cheap, and commute 2-3 hrs to LA for work, which seems insane to me.

3

Only been through there a few times, never stayed for very long. Desert, yes, which means what you’d think: very hot in the summer, 100 oF or so. It’s a pretty dry heat, if that helps any. Probably gets pretty chilly at night in the winter, but not much colder than 25 oF, I think, which isn’t very cold in lots of the U.S. Not much snow, tho maybe some light stuff, occasionally.

I expect that like lots of LA, it will have it’s own neighborhood feel to it. It’s separated from the LA basin by mountains, so you won’t feel ‘part’ of the huge metropolitan area. Yes, those mountains have skiing and snow in the winter, and you’ll also be only a few hours away from the Sierras.

There is commuter rail service to LA, so you’ll have some okay access to the activities in the metro area (and beaches) that won’t even involve a car! Just as well: the state highway (SR 14) that goes to LA most directly is jammed most of the time.

The big local politics will likely involve arguments about the California High Speed Rail proposed to run through Bakersfield and Palmdale, then under the mountains to Burbank, and then to LA Union Station. Right now, they’re building it in the Central Valley with no final agreement of how to get it through Bakersfield, I think.

All in all, not my first choice of places to live, but not all that bad, if you can put up with the heat.

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I live in Lancaster about 10 minutes away politically were one of the only areas that trump won in la county there’s 2 churches for every 3 people so lots of people pay lip service to being conservative

you’ll have to get used to the whole region being called " the antelope valley or AV"

only a few people(and the politicans ) who live in either place will differentiate between Palmdale and Lancaster …weve pretty much recovered from the recession and the meth mess of the 90s

Palmdale is a bit more rural than Lancaster but they have the mall and the upscale shopping/restaurant centers around the mall We do have local events like palmdale had the fall festival and Lancaster has things in the middle of town … like the av Christmas festival is on the 10th this year we have a minor league baseball also … and the high point of summer
is our fair
now unfortunately youre going to move here during our 6 to 8 weeks of cold weather that usually begins right after thanksgiving to early February our coldest last year was 19 but that’s not the usual

Now from april to right around Halloween its anywhere between 70 and 115 in the summer make sure you get a house with central air because a swamp cooler barely touches it …oh and were in the middle of the biggest drought in 50 years so watch how much water you use

and if you find a good Chinese delivery place let me know please …

Other than that were just a few moderately sized towns clumped together like you find everywhere in America

and our police is the la county sheriff department and we get all the freshly minted officers so don’t expect too much if you have to contact them …

hope this helps :slight_smile:

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Only been through it, but it seemed like kind of a hick town to me.

This is the city anthem, I think… :smiley:

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Palmdale, CA

Enjoy the ride.:smiley:

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I lived in Little Rock, east of Palmdale for 10 years. I !liked it because I like the desert and could dirt bike and mountain bike ride out of the house. The Antelope Valley has good and bad spots just like any other area but housing is affordable. Working at Plant 42 will let your husband avoid the dreadful commute and that’s a good thing,trust me.
Don’t forget the Antelope Valley Wind Festival, which runs from Jan 1 through Dec 31 every year.:smiley:

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He ain’t shittin’ about that wind.

I used to race motorcycles out there before they paved and developed the whole area. Its unrecognizable to me now. Except for the wind.

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We currently live on 25 acres in a very rural area of Missouri, so we aren’t coming from a big city or anything. We’re looking at some tracts of land out in that hilly area west of town. I’d really like this one http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2097823052_zpid/

Thanks so much for all the replies so far.

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A little more info now that I can type on a real keyboard. Palmdale’s just a short drive up hwys 14/58 from Tehachapi, nestled in its namesake mountains. It’s a 4 seasons area, has snow in winter and is a charming area. To the west of that, there’s a road you can take north through Caliente, Bodfish, and Lake Isabella that leads to Kernville. If the drought doesn’t do in the Kern river, there’s nice white water rafting. West of Palmdale, you can drive through the Leona Valley past Lake Elizabeth and all the way out to the “Grapevine” where I5 passes through the mountains. South of Palmdale you can take County road 3 up to the Angeles Crest Hwy. Driving east on it, take a side trip to Mt. Wilson, where Edwin Hubble discovered the expansion of the universe and developed his “Big Bang” theory. There’s skiing in Wrightwood if the snow does well and the weather holds cold. They have snow making machines and can do a fair job if it’s cold enough.
There’s actually a lot of beauty in the high desert if you open your eyes. I’ve seen (on a dirt bike, 'cause you can’t get everywhere by foot in the dez) entire valleys covered in tiny blue and yellow flowers. Spring can be spectacular there.
North of Palmdale and Mojave, there’s the China Lake Naval Test Station, where on some days you can watch the fighter jocks play. Years ago, riding in the dez, one of them buzzed us in a Warthog. A lot of those guys ride, and it was thrilling and also a little terrifying being “strafed”. He gave us a huge wing waggle at the end and went about his biz.
Get used to a little dust, use the door on the lee side of the house, respect the extremes of the climate and you’ll enjoy the area.

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I lived in Lancaster during high school and into my mid-20s.

Summers rarely exceed 110ºF or so. Usually it’s 100º to 105º. It’s not so bad. If you’re outside, you have the wind providing evaporative cooling. Inside, you have your cooling system. You’ll be more comfortable with an HVAC system, but we didn’t have one. We had a swamp cooler on the roof that blew into the intersection of the hall, kitchen, and living room. It did a good job, with two caveats: It worked better if we turned it on first thing in the morning. Yes, it made the house a bit chilly, but it helped later in the day. And I had to clean the excelsior out of the ‘spider’ every couple of days. Oh, and wetting down the roof helps a little bit. (Of course, not continuously wet. We found it helped if we turned the cooler on late.) It’s a lot cheaper than a/c. It will get damp in the house. Dad’s humidity meter read around 80%, and sometimes 100%. But it’s so dry up there, it’s not that much of a problem. Note that a swamp cooler will not work very well in mid-August monsoon season.

Lancaster, Palmdale, Quartz Hill, etc. are in the Antelope Valley. You will learn to call it ‘the AV’. When I was there (until the mid-'80s, visiting until 2000), Los Angeles, Van Nuys, etc. were called ‘Down Below’. As in, ‘Hey, you want to go Down Below to go shopping?’

Main streets are in a grid. Numbered streets run north and south, and the tens are one mile apart. 20th St. W. is one mile from 10th St. W., and so on. The ‘East’ and ‘West’ streets are divided by a street called Division. Lettered streets run east and west, and are a mile apart. Between them, the streets are the street letter followed by a number. For example, W. Ave. K-8. Letters ascend to the south. (Or descend as you go north. Whatever.)

The property you’re looking at is at 90th St. W. So that’s nine miles out of town. (Or seven or eight, depending where you’re going.) Pretty out there, but a bit of a drive. We didn’t have a/c in the cars (well, one had it, but dad drove that one), and I was on my Enduro anyway. Long drives in hot wind can get a little boring.

The Mojave Desert is beautiful, especially the western part where the AV is. Farther west, where you’re looking at property, there’s the California Poppy Preserve. The Joshua trees are unique, and you’ll appreciate them more if you’ve read The Right Stuff. I still can’t look at them without thinking ‘arthritic’. (BTW: You know you’ve been in the AV too long when you start thinking of Joshua trees as actual trees.) Look around, and you’ll see it’s not all sand and rock. There’s a rainbow of colours out there, and all kinds of interesting plants, animals, and geology.

When I lived in the AV, there were basically three kinds of people: Those who worked at Plant 42 (aerospace workers), Air Force, and farmers. The population has exploded since I lived there, and my impression is that most of them are refugees from the high cost of housing Down Below. Oh, I worked across from LAX, and for the first two years I commuted from Ave. K & 20th St W. 75 miles.

Go to Crazy Ottos’s for breakfast – the one on 20th St. W and Ave. K.

That’s all for now. I have to get back to work. In the meantime, there’s a FB page called ‘You know you’re from the AV when…’ Lots of pics there.

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Oh, one more thing (for now): It can get chilly in Winter, like the low-teens. Certainly below freezing, so roads can be icy from time to time. Sometimes it snows, too.

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If you don’t mind cactus and Joshua trees, you’ll be fine.
There’s a lot of cactus and Joshua trees.
I don’t care for them.

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met him one time at one of the pubs … he was funny as heck …he lived up here and has family still does other single was actually called “palmdale”

Oh and another tip ignore the “north Compton” remarks ya might here there a bit exaggerated

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Of course, Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart were from the AV.

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China Lake is also home to one of the largest petroglyph sites in the southwest. You can sign up for tours of the Coso Rock Art District at the Maturango Museum in Ridgecrest. Well worth the effort if you’re interested in Native American art/culture of the area.

The Antelope Valley Indian Museum east of Lancaster is another cool spot to check out for Native American art and artifacts.

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Thank you for posting this ! I have never heard of Coso. I would love to see the petroglyphs.

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If you like the idea of a small town as opposed to hard-core rural then Tehachapi is much nicer than being out in the trackless flats of the desert living amongst the tumbleweeds and the crazy bastards.

I just happen to own a half acre plus vacant lot in a ranch-style housing development near there. It was set up as a place for retirees to have ranchettes with horses and golf courses and such. But it got whacked in the great 1970s recession just as it was getting off the ground. As of now about half the lots are built.

If you want some cheap buildable land with roads, city water, sewage, etc. already in place, PM me.

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Mrs. L.A.'s uncle had some land near Tehachapi. He was washed away in a flash flood last year. They never found his body.

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uh… you do realize that “that hilly area” is also known as the San Andreas Fault? Like, not near it? It IS the fault?