You just can't beat the "traffic"

We lived in San Diego for 30+ years and it was paradise in the 60 's, 70's, and even into the 80's. But then developers moved in and traffic became more and more congested. We lived near my work and it used to take me 10 minutes to go home, so I could even go home for lunch whenever I could. Then it became more and more crowded, and the 10 minutes started taking 20, then 30, and sometimes 40 minutes or more to travel the 10 miles home.


Then one day sitting in traffic, I decided that this was not the way I wanted to spend the rest of my life. Luckily at that time I had the opportunity to sell my company so we sold out and bought a small ranch in Central California...no more traffic!

So we moved to the country and as my wife often said, "A traffic jam in Paso Robles is meeting another car when you merge onto the freeway". Free of traffic at last...

But then shortly after moving here I just missed hitting a deer one night and the next morning had a direct hit on a squirrel with my car. Not long after that I was driving along 101 and out of the corner of my eye saw two deer along the freeway on the other side. Almost instantly one of the deer jumped onto the freeway and was hit head on by a Ford Explorer. The Ford had it's complete front end destroyed. It was like a major traffic accident in Southern California, but this time caused by "animal traffic'.

So here we are now after living in the country for 17 years and have learned that even though there are few cars to worry about, drivers need to keep a constant vigil to watch for deer, skunks, squirrels, bobcats, foxes, and yes, it's common to run over a tarantula or two.

It has been an adjustment to put up with the "animal traffic", but just when we were getting used to watching for critters jumping in front of us, a new hazard has appeared here on the Central Coast. Last week north of Cambria two elephant seals left the beach and crossed State Highway 1, and immediately a "sigalert" went out throughout the county to watch out for elephant seals on Hwy 1 North.













So you folks that sit in traffic every day in Southern California, and wish to live in the country...remember, it's not the "traffic paradise" you think it is. Picture a 1500 lb elephant seal jumping in front of your car -well, they don't exactly jump, they kind of move their blubber along to move forward. But hit one in a car and you will be airborne. Stay in Southern California, you are much safer, and take it from me, no matter where you live, you just can't beat the "traffic".