I was born in the Ft. Worth/Dallas area, although we moved away from there in 1969 and I spent the balance of my childhood (the 1970s) in El Paso. I also miss good Tex-Mex and good Tejano/Chihuahan food. You can't find the latter for love or money anywhere in the San Francisco Bay area, or rather couldn't for nineteen years. (I lived there til 2006). There's a lot to love about the San Francisco area, indoors and out. If I were still single, I would probably still be living there. Although there are things to love about and in Texas, I can't imagine moving back. I left Texas when I was eighteen with no plans to ever move back, and still have none over thirty years later.

However, right now the tax situation and laws in California have gone beyond merely irritating to frankly intolerable as far as I'm concerned. When we moved to Nevada, I got a six-hundred dollar a month raise in take-home pay just from no longer having to pay California income taxes, and another four to six hundred in lower housing costs. While I make a decent living, I'm not rich. Even after adding some additional unemployment insurance and donating a chunk of that to the local food bank, I'm way ahead financially. When you add to that the reduction in pollution, rush hour traffic, and crowds, I find that I don't mind having to travel a couple hundred miles and spend a weekend in the Bay area once in a while for business and to catch up on some local culture.

BTW, have you discovered Ernie's BBQ in Emeryville? If not, you've missed the best BBQ in the Bay Area. Armadillo Willy's is okay, but a poor also-ran in comparison to Ernie's.

More than the normal quota of Texas exiles here. Count me among them. I spent the first 31 years of my life in the Houston/SE Texas/SW La area. I don't miss it, for all the reasons so eloquently listed by Dan. The food, for me as well, is the only thing of consequence that I do miss. I've been in the Washington, DC suburbs for almost 23 years, and while it's far from heaven, it beats the crap out of Texas. We can at least get decent Tex-Mex here now.

I've visited California, both north and south, several times on business and every time I'm there I think I'd love to live there. I'm pretty sure I never will, though. I think I'm beyond the nomadic stage of my life.

I thought I was, too.

California, especially NorCal, is beautiful in ways that transcend any political or governmental issues. Keep it on your list should vanderloost strike.

We aren't leaving because we're disenchanted with California - not specifically. The down issues are real but not the cause. It's more that other places and a different basic lifestyle are calling. I will miss many things about here but it's unlikely any of them will keep me awake nights.

I've never been to Ernie's. I'm in Sunnyvale, so Emeryville would be an hour and a half away in traffic, minimum. Too far to go when I have Andy's in Santa Clara. I wouldn't even count Armadillo Willie's as an also-ran.

I don't find I miss California too often, but on occasion I'll find myself driving CS1 in my mind, anywhere from San Simeon to Fort Bragg, Mustang with the top down. . .

But now Jim will have US1 in reach to do that with, which ain't too shabby in selected spots either from my one experience in Maine a couple years back. The ocean was on the wrong side tho. Maybe you have to be a CA boy to get the disconcerting mind-twist of going North on a twisty road with the ocean on your *right*.

California is like Texas. Both are great places to be from. And I have spent too much time in both.

For me, the difference is that maybe, someday, I might want to move back to California. Texas is a good place to visit, but I don't think I'll ever want to live there again.

A large proportion of the least brainy cities in America are not far from Jim, in the Central Valley.

Sorry - I sucked it all up and now I'm taking it with me.

The article neglected to mention that not only is this area not "brainy" many people (including children) here are downright hostile to what is portrayed as "elitist"(usually misspelled) which apparently means anyone who disagrees with the pap they have been fed by FOX news and their ilk.

However, Jim is not the only intelligent person around here.