Folks,
I will be in and out of Bakersfield for the next several months, is there anything there? (I will have a car, I am commuting from Houston, Texas, 1,678 miles according to Mapquest).
unclviny
Oh god man. I’m so sorry.
I spent 10 years at China Lake, and we tried to find something resembling city life in Bakersfield as that was the closest big city to us, next to Palmdale and Victorville. Lot of gang crap and redneck bars. Best I can say about it is that there are a few decent restaurants and that it is close to Lake Isabella. Occasionally you get a few good country/western shows at the racetrack (this is from a rocker). If you are a redneck, you might not find it half bad. If you are a rocker/city person/hunter… well… I’ve only vistied Houston, and not too much at that, but on the outside, it isn’t much different… If you like the city life…
I feel for ya. Nasty town, IMO. I never liked it, even visiting from a town from hell.
You have my sympathies, unclviny.
For the next couple of months be ready for fog like you have never seen before. After that the farmers will plow their fields and when the wind comes up the dust storms are almost as bad as the fog.
Good things
LA, Lake Isabella, Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon are all less than a two hour drive.
Um, on Eye Street there’s a great ice cream and candy parlor called Dewar’s. And the libraries are pretty good for California.
If people rave about the Basque restaurant where you sit at big tables and stuff all you can eat down your throat for practically no money, don’t believe them; it costs a lot of money these days. The food ain’t bad though.
That’s about it. I hope you have good airconditioning for summer, when you’re not allowed to complain about the heat until it’s 110 degrees. The fog is terrible, all right, and I was there (albeit 3 years old) for the dust storm of '76, which lasted 3 days. Have fun!