Reviews & Comments
Jackson, WY
Easterners Playing Cowboy -
7/26/2020Jackson, like so many other wealthy towns, is composed of the wealthy who made their money elsewhere and those who serve them. Those who serve are actually pretty nice here. Sadly, as you drive into town you'll no doubt see a Massachusetts license plate, then a New Jersey one, and you begin to realize that a small sliver of the I-95 corridor broke off, and ended up 2000 miles away in the middle of the country. And it's the wrong kind of Easterner. The ones who vacation on a pile of other Easterners to impress each other (see Martha's Vineyard). The kind who value being in the right place with the right people, in the right social pecking order, over actually having a good time, as they're too tightly wound, thin skinned and self conscious. If you want to buy Western art there's no better place. If you want to have a better time, go to Sun Valley. The "Elk Preserve" is the biggest let down. It's just an open space created to keep out development that's been poorly window dressed as a "preserve."
Petaluma, CA
Beautiful Town with Vapid People -
6/18/2020I give one star for the restaurant quality, and one for the charm of the town, which also has pretty great weather. What a great town it would be if it wasn't for the people. Some say that LA people are ungrounded and not living in reality. They can also say that about far flung places like Kauai. I know both. But let me tell you, when it comes to meeting people who've never had a reality check, who wouldn't know reality if it bit them in the behind, this town is quite something. It's a very expensive town, but what's amazing about it is just how many people can still make a living, still pay the mortgage or rent, while mentally living in outer space. See the previous one star review. All of that is true. It's worse than hippies though. It's like cleaner, put together, totalitarian corporate hippies, if that makes sense. But even worse, I've never met such a boring group of people in my life. And as super polite as they are they'll get quite offended if you present them with a real, heartfelt opinion. Authenticity doesn't count for much in this town. You have to be there to really understand.
Petaluma, CA
Nice town, terrible traffic and road conditions -
6/8/2019Petaluma gets four stars for several reasons. The great bars and restaurants, the neighborhoods, the weather, which is the best in Sonoma County, but in regards to traffic and road conditions, it's a complete disaster. Not only is 101 traffic terrible at nearly all hours going north and south, but the town's east west traffic is just as bad. The city needs a bridge across the Petaluma river at the south end of town. In addition the road conditions are the worst I've seen. Potholes everywhere. This city isn't poor, it had enough money for an asinine "road diet" in the downtown area. The citizens are to blame, who let the city counsel prioritize everything, including ghastly modern art, except for fixing potholes, the very basics of running a city.
Rohnert Park, CA
Soulless, but Very Convenient -
6/8/2019If Rohnert Park was a person, it would be your little brother who got into drugs early in life, but made a solid comeback and now lives a solidly lower middle class life with a motorcycle in the garage.
This town is generally hated by other people in Sonoma County. It's looked down upon as a declasse' bedroom community with no soul. However these same people often sneak into RP to do their shopping, as RP has by far the best convenience shopping in the county. It has all the big box stores that everyone hates, yet patronize. It also has a casino just out of town to the west, mostly for city people.
The weather is some of the best in the county as the further south you go in the Summer the better it is.
The downside to RP, is mostly the housing. You have some really ugly stuff in this town, from which grew rapidly from the 60's through the 80's. Parks and trees abound however, cushioning the blow from the banal, soul eating architecture. Also, you have ground zero of messed up adult children living with parents. Single family home neighborhoods that should have ample parking instead have four cars per house. The house likely having powder blue T1-11 siding from 1981 and a dead tree in the yard. The public schools? Great if you hate school and plan to work in a trade.
Santa Rosa, CA
Weird and Provincial -
5/18/2019The place gets both its stars for the weather, which is not as good as coastal places like Monterey or Santa Barbara, but holds its own despite the summer heat. The summer nights are almost always cool and temperate which you grow to appreciate. In addition the scenery and topography of Sonoma County are truly outstanding and picture perfect.
Now the downside. I've been here for 10 years and my opinion of the place is remarkably unchanged over these years. I have to say that it may be the single most provincial place in the country. I use the word provincial deliberately. The inhabitants are generally unsophisticated, narrow minded people. You may ask, how can one of the most liberal places in the country be provincial? It doesn't make sense. I too would have thought that before moving here. But, alas, there it is, the most closed minded, conservative people I've met, live in this town. I don't mean politically conservative. I mean in personality, in demeanor, and most of all in uninteresting, unusually sheltered lives.
This is a town that stopped a freeway from going two or three miles through the east side of town for all sorts of environmental reasons, only causing needless and endless traffic congestion on Farmers and Hoen. But that's what you get when you have an area jam packed with old, slowly dying flower children, which is another interesting part of living here. Nearly an entire demographic is missing between high school kids and the Teva wearing gray haired. If you're here to raise a family, you've come to the wrong place. The public school system is as malfunctioning as anywhere else in CA, nothing to write home about, that is if you do indeed learn to write. The economy is wholly unable to provide a good standard of living for anyone not occupying a niche job, which means a lot of people disappear as they follow their career paths.
The worst part of the place however is what I can only describe as an "Indian burial ground vibe." It feels dead. After all of these years I can't put my finger on it, other than a feeling. Yes, a lot of people here smoke pot, but that's not it. It just feels like something not alive. The people are very polite, but there's an empty coldness to them. You may even say they have an inner meanness or aloofness with an outer politeness, yet also with childlike personalities. Passive aggression? Passive annoying? I'm not from the midwest, but midwesterners I know pick up on this right away. It's a strange bubble of humanity.
I will likely not retire here, but it is where my particular niche career has placed me.