Friday, November 03, 2006

taqueria should be #1


Watsonville. Its the new Bend.

I'm a happy girl. Because some of my favorite people have decided not to move to Bend. They've decided to move to Watsonville instead.

Yay.

Because I ain't moving to Bend. It doesn't make the cut. Bend loses on #9 and a little bit of #13

Michael and I sometimes talk about our criteria for a place to live, in case wanderlust overcomes us and we want to see other places. So far its come to this.


1. No cities. Neither one of us like people all that much. At least not that many people all stuffed into one smelly place. Being around too many people gives me panic attacks. I fainted at a crowded kegger party once (and not because I was overly drunk) and my mom fainted at a crowded Julio Iglesias concert once (and not because she was overly smitten). Anyway, no cities.

2. No backwoods. As much as I don't like cities, I also don't like ultra boonies. I need a Trader Joe's and a place to go Salsa dancing, and a movie theatre that shows indie films.

3. No suburbs. Their homogoneity scares me. On a very deep level.

4. No states/counties with retarded liquor laws that have you driving all over the place in search of the "state" liquor store. No goofy blue laws either.

5. No states with existing or pending anti abortion laws or severe family planning restrictions. Not that I plan on using these things but I want no part of such a backwards state. (no on 85)

6. And I probably won't be a happy camper at anything within the bible belt. No offense to those bible beltians that don't force schools to teach dogma in science class. (Parenthetical confession - I honestly have no idea where the bible belt actually is)




7. No states where the highest elevation is a freeway overpass. I can't stand looking off into the distance and not seeing hills on the horizon. How do you Floridians even orient yourselves?

8. Speaking of Florida, no areas that have bugs so big and nasty that you have to screen in your backyard. Screened in backyards...kid you not, people live with this.

9. No daytime temps below 40

10. No temps above 100

11. More than average number of sunny days. I am a fair weather rider through and through.

12. Proximity to an ocean. Even though I never do ocean things, its always nice to know its there. On second thought, I might be able to forgo this.



12. Proximity to taquerias. Unlike the ocean, this is an essential in my life. Besides liking, no..needing, the food, the lack of good taquerias says a lot about a place. And Baja Freshy places, which will do in a pinch, does not count. I want to see birria or lengua on the menu (although I never order either) and soccer on the tv in the corner.

13. Diversity. Nothing against white people, some of my best friends are white...

14. Access to good mountain biking. Duh.

15. Access to good, and relatively safe, road riding where people are less likely to throw Coors cans at you.



16. Not so expensive that we can't afford to do anything. And I suppose I'll need a job that I don't hate.

Watsonville is far from perfect. The drive to Santa Cruz sucks like a million times, and there's always farm mud on the roads and the smell of manure in the air. And the redwoods, for all their tree hugging grandeur, are actually kind of annoying. But as more of my friends move here, its looking pretty darned good.

For now.

29 Comments:

At 5:08 PM, November 06, 2006, Blogger Brent said...

Hmm pooh.
I think there are more people of diversity in Bend than in Santa Cruz.

Latinos don't count as diversity here in Cali they have been here all along, the whities just stole the state from them for a little while...

oh.. and I found 2 really good taquarias in Bend thus far.

But please do keep more people from moving to Bend. We need to sell our house first!@! and i'd rather keep santa cruz weird and Bend normal. That way my future trips back to my home town will be more interesting.

And when we open our chalet for winter escapades i expect you to come for lengua tacos and snow boarding.

 
At 5:13 PM, November 06, 2006, Blogger Velo Bella said...

I never said that Santa Cruz was more diverse, nor that Bend did not have taquerias.

Santa Cruz is the whitest place I have ever lived, outside of Germany anyway.

And I don't do snow.

 
At 5:36 PM, November 06, 2006, Blogger Lorri Lee Lown -- velogirl said...

what happened to the men of cross?

 
At 7:05 PM, November 06, 2006, Blogger Velo Bella said...

I havent come up for air yet

 
At 7:39 PM, November 06, 2006, Blogger Ippoc Amic said...

I used to live in Kansas; very bible belt. Their hills are shorter than freeway under passes, and they are called turnpikes.

Anyway, not moving back there any time soon, but we could afford a house, maybe...unless we were strung up first. You can't buy mojitos on Sundays, more reason not to live there.

I like Berkeley. And, moving would be a scary thought.

 
At 9:27 PM, November 06, 2006, Blogger PAB(a.k.a.CID) said...

If we could get a TJ's in the foothills, I think we would meet all the requirements....

You have to accept occasional snow, cus I heard it even snowed at the beach.

 
At 9:55 PM, November 06, 2006, Blogger Brennabella said...

Hood River.
1) population 6K.
2) Trillium Cafe: Bands college age getting their groove on. Skylight Theatre: Indie Films and pizza, really, pizza by the slice and a movie theatre with funky couches and end tables for your pizza. Negative: nearest TJ's, Portland (60 mi). Long commute for 2 buck chuck.
3) Definately no suburbs.
4) Gotta get your Tanqueray before 7pm at the liquor store... another negative..OR liquor law.
5) Oregon just made pseudofed OTC illegal. No restrictions on families here.
6) Pacific NW... no bananas here.
7) Mt. Hood elevation 11,249ft.
8) No backyard screens. But the wind just might blow your backyard patio table away, if not your umbrella.
9 & 10) Hmm. It can get cold here." Average Temp.: January 33.6°, July 72°" and over 100 but not often.
11) Annual Precipitation: 30.85"!! OMG! How am I going to be a bike racer!! Brenna meet the trainer in the garage.
12) Mt. Hood and Columbia River Gorge.
13)"Economy: Agriculture, food processing, forest products and recreation..." yep, agriculture...and with ag comes tacos, ya know it.
14) HR has epic MTB and tricks park...tricks are for kids...
15) Mt.Hood Cycling classic.
16) twice the square footage, half the price. Sabine, you can do anything you rightly want to and get paid for it. I'm a fan.
17) HR rains a lot and the wind blows hard in the summer, that's why it is the windsurfing mecca of the nation... but wind is your training friend, right?
Wish more of my friends lived here or moved here, 'cause I miss you.

ps Brent, I'll be there!

 
At 9:58 PM, November 06, 2006, Blogger Brennabella said...

k, i gotta take that gay pic of myself down now

 
At 6:51 AM, November 07, 2006, Blogger Velo Bella said...

PAB - sorry, snow is an automatic disqualifier. And how's that taqueria situation going?

BB - Wind. Wind makes me crazy.

 
At 7:05 AM, November 07, 2006, Blogger Velo Bella said...

Ippoc - When I was a baby my dad (actually my mom because he was in Vietnam)got transferred from Munich to Fort Riley Kansas. It was my mom's first trip to the states.

She cried when she arrived because she found it ugly. A week later she went through a hurricane. Then one Sunday she went to a restaurant and found she could not have wine with her meal.

Hurricanes and ugly she could deal with, but no wine with dinner, that was intolerable. We moved back home to Munich after that. And it took another 8 years to convince her that Ft Ord was nothing like Fort Riley and to give the US another try.

 
At 8:15 AM, November 07, 2006, Blogger PAB(a.k.a.CID) said...

That's hysterical. No wine with dinner? For a euro that would truly be a shock...

Sonora. It is too big city-ish for me, but not for most normal people. It is very affordable, there is great road and mtb riding. It only snows once a year there, and not very much. There have been rumors for some time about TJs coming, and there is GREAT messican food there.

Actually, there is a new place near us that i hear is pretty good--but they use lard in their cooking so we had to pass.

 
At 8:19 AM, November 07, 2006, Blogger marscat said...

Watsonville, hmm, sounding tempting. You'll have to give us the name of a good taqueria.

My sister lived for a time in Watsonville in a small cottage on the back of someone's lot. It had a wordburning stove. I loved visiting her for a weekend, getting out of nosiy SF.

 
At 8:31 AM, November 07, 2006, Blogger norcalcyclingnews.com said...

"I loved visiting her for a weekend, getting out of nosiy SF."


... uh, hello? there's a nice quiet place i know of you can visit to get out of SF.

kitty friendly, and all.

 
At 8:36 AM, November 07, 2006, Blogger Unknown said...

ya, but actually finding a decent & affordable place to rent there is proving a bit more difficult then i hoped. I really like that place I told you about but they haven't returned my phone call.

i'll email you the address so you can ride by it.

 
At 8:37 AM, November 07, 2006, Blogger Unknown said...

and now that i'm in limbo with work & my back the actual move posses a bit of a problem.

but i'm sooooooo dying to get down there!

 
At 8:39 AM, November 07, 2006, Blogger Unknown said...

oh and taqueria is definitly a qualifier but i'm bias and really do like my own messican cooking, if I do say so myself...

 
At 9:36 AM, November 07, 2006, Blogger Brent said...

i didn't mean it was you that said that...
I was just making a stupid statement.
I am good at that.

Lompico.. now thats Scary white.

Corralitos was way off the map when I was a kid, my friends lived there and there was no one out there but apples and farmers. We used to ride horses and bikes in the road.

:)

 
At 9:37 AM, November 07, 2006, Blogger Velo Bella said...

Sonora....I should have amended #1. Make it 1a. Although I don't want to live in a city, I would like to be within an hour of one. For all the diversities and conveniences and shopping and art (although I don't visit art much, its like the ocean, I like to know its there)

And Stockton doesn't quite qualify

 
At 9:39 AM, November 07, 2006, Blogger Velo Bella said...

now there's no one in Corralitos except apples, and farmers, and meth labs, and the Dukes Hotet.

And the bagpipe player down the street.

 
At 9:40 AM, November 07, 2006, Blogger Velo Bella said...

Although, I must say, the help yourself apple stands in Corralitos are charming as hell

 
At 10:38 AM, November 07, 2006, Blogger Unknown said...

I think you just eliminated every place on, and off, the map.

The other day I was watching Jeopardy and at the part where all the contestants tell their silly little stories, one contestant proudly piped up about how he had scaled all of the 3,000 foot mountains in New Jersey.

 
At 11:27 AM, November 07, 2006, Blogger Ippoc Amic said...

...stuck in Kansas-your poor mom...Munchen seems way more cool...

 
At 11:37 AM, November 07, 2006, Blogger X Bunny said...

can you get DQ'ed for using the same photo twice?

 
At 1:36 PM, November 07, 2006, Blogger norcalcyclingnews.com said...

bwaahahahaha...

 
At 2:36 PM, November 07, 2006, Blogger Velo Bella said...

You can use the same photo more than once, as often as you like really, as long as it is your own photo.

But you can't use a googled or a stolen photo more than once.

thems the rules.

 
At 3:46 PM, November 07, 2006, Blogger X Bunny said...

well it is a cool photo so i am ok with that

and those rules seem reasonable

but i am the rulemaster--so just clear future rules with me first...

 
At 8:51 PM, November 07, 2006, Blogger GoldiJM said...

Watsonville, the new Bend. I had to laugh outloud when Ben told me you posted that. We, of course, are planning to move down that-a-way next year sometime.

 
At 9:15 PM, November 07, 2006, Blogger Velo Bella said...

I know....
you guys are part of the reason I did my happy dance!

 
At 12:31 PM, November 12, 2006, Blogger GoldiJM said...

So sweet.

Ben and I figured it was because of Mary and Ana. I look forward to helping out with more things Bella once I am done with school and my commitement to Sports Council.

Do the Bellas have room for another Chiro sponsor?

 

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