Roads are clear today… the rocks, the rain, the snow, the ice, the bears, the fog and the mosquitoes have all taken the day off… the community is free to commute with impunity, whatever that means. Does this imply that sometimes we commute with punity? Who knows… whatever the case, not today: Today, it’s all impunity for us. Just another reason why living on the mountain is so great.
Say… since THAT was mentioned, allow me to take this opportunity to present you with a list… Here are the top 11 reasons that living on the mountain is great:
1) We get to live in a place that many people spend all year long striving to get to. They struggle and save to get to the point where they can spend ONE week visiting the place where we LIVE for 52 weeks. Even after the saving and waiting for the vacation days to become available, they still need to make reservations, spend a lot of money, coordinate schedules, and work very hard to pull it all off. We LIVE the vacation… every single night, you get to drive home, stay in a resort area that most Southern Californians only get to visit once in a while… for their annual trip to the mountains.
2) We get high, every day, without even breaking any laws.
3) We get four seasons… not every place does. I lived in Texas for a while, near Houston. There, they have the hot-steamy season… and the other two days of the year are a little chilly, with lows approaching 45 degrees. San Bernardino has hot… and some dirty rain. Other places have nothing but hot, or nothing but cold. But up here on this mountain, we get the heat of the summer (albeit not as bad as down below!), the brisk scents and brilliant colors of autumn, the snow and the ice that winter MUST have, and the flowering, warming days of spring. Instead of monotony and gloom, we get glorious change.
4) Mountains are funny: they are, in fact, totally hill areas. But don’t take that fact for granite: the hilarity PEAKS around here.
5) We name our kids things like Cliff, Forest, Bear, Brook, Hunter, Meadow, Shasta, Dawn, Glen, or Sierra, and it seems perfectly normal.
6) We LIVE in thinner air than most Californians do. Your respiratory system acclimates to our thin air, so when you go down to lower elevations, you are like a superhero with amazing respiratory powers!
7) When we are avoiding phone calls, we can ALWAYS say, “I had no signal!” Nobody can argue with that claim. Especially if you have T-Mobile.
8) We get to be elite… we can call others “flatlanders,” “bottom dwellers,” or even just, “city folk.” Yep… this does make us better than them.
8) The fuel mileage! Have you ever paid attention to the mileage that your car gets while coasting downhill? Most modern cars have “current mileage” indicators that can be displayed. Mine often gets over 100 MPG, while going down Highway 18. Really! (No need to discuss the uphill mileage… not relevant to my argument… because it’s MY argument.)
9) We lead more interesting lives. Now, all of my co-workers at my job in Rancho Cucamonga THINK that I live in Big Bear (because any mountain area is, “Big Bear,” whether it’s actually Lake Arrowhead, or Crestline, or Castaic, Diamond Head, or Little Mountain), but they also think that on a daily basis, I wrestle with bears just to get to my car in the morning, that I play Frogger with rocks and landslides during the drive, and that I must regularly strategize to find my car under WHICH mound of snow… even in the summer. They think that at least one leg of my daily commute is done by cliffside-navigating mule, and that waterfalls and mountain lions and avalanches are regular parts of it, too. That’s okay… let ‘em think that. While our mountain lives might not be THAT interesting, they are still a lot more eventful, fulfilling, enriching, and healthy than the lives of those who never escape the ambient noise of freeways or the scent of cities.
10) Summertime: FREE AIR CONDITIONING! We are typically 10-15 degrees cooler than San Bernardino in the summertime… that is NIIIIIIICE!
11) Finally: Freakin’ Road Reports! I know… some of you newer readers of this column are probably wondering why this is even called a “road report.” However, the reason will become evident as winter approaches…. There is a chance, however small it may be, that you will actually derive USEFUL information from this column! Throughout the winter, road conditions change frequently, and these conditions can greatly affect one’s ability to travel safely. The “condition” that affects travel most significantly is the snow and ice accumulation. The INTENT of the road report is to give you the information you need BEFORE you leave the house, so you’ll know whether you need to put snow chains on your vehicle, or if it’s best to even just stay home with the fireplace and some hot toddies (or, a hottie in a teddy, even). These conditions are not black and white, either. Well, they’re mostly white, during the winter… but the road report will give you details about everything from how slippery the road surface is, to where CHP/CalTrans has chain control locations posted, to where to be aware of rockslides or flooded areas.
Anyhow, that’s the INTENT of the road report…. In the meantime, as we wait for winter to arrive and justify this column’s existence, we can totally goof off. Let your inner Beavis and Butthead run free, Cornholio… enjoy some scatological humor, indulge in laughing-out-loud at the occasional slightly off-color, politically incorrect joke, or perhaps just chuckle yourself silly over some subtly punny and unexpected word play. After all… WE LIVE IN THE MOUNTAINS! Everything is different— nay, BETTER— up here!