California Coastin’
There are lots of things I like about California living. First and foremost among them is the casual dress climate we enjoy here in San Diego. Almost the biggest decision I make all year long is when I shift from shorts to long pants and vice versa as the weather cools. I noted that this weekend was due to be a slightly cooler weather weekend with temperatures in the mid-60s with a slight chance of rain. Since it is almost Thanksgiving, I decided that it was a good time to shift from shorts to long pants. Its Saturday and I have almost nothing planned for the day other than to spread a little bit of mulch, so I put on one of my many pairs of Duluth Flex Firehose cargo pants (my go-to pant of choice these days). Since I don’t have any social obligations of note today, I did not wear one of my many button-down broadcloth shirts, but decided to grab a knit long-sleeved Duluth T-shirt only to find that I chose a short-sleeved one masquerading as a long-sleeve in that pile (I usually hate it when that happens). The weather out here is such that the mistake gave me little concern and just decided to go with the short-sleeve. Such is the moderate nature of the weather, where even if you make a sartorial error, the price you pay is minimal. I assure you, California will not make me feel very cold at all today not will it extract a heavy price for my t-shirt choice, almost no matter what.
Another reason to feel good about California this morning is that we have officially come out of a state-wide draught and that really shows in the garden. The early rains this year brought by the thirteen Pacific atmospheric rivers have so nicely replenished our local reservoirs that it has been declared that we are officially no longer in a state of drought. It shows on the landscape and with the expectations of a stronger than normal El Niño effect expected this winter, we should be in fine water shape for the foreseeable future. I have heard nothing about wildfire concerns this year and that is, in and of itself, a great relief and almost a miracle of sorts given that it was the number one cause for concern in the natural disaster category for us. We are not in a particularly active seismic or earthquake area here, given that the San Andreas Fault is far east of us at this southerly part of the state, and being at 1633 feet of altitude on our hilltop we have nothing approaching flooding concerns, that leaves our natural disaster dance card pretty empty and that’s a good thing. I read this morning about increased risk of wildfires on the East Coast. Go figure.
You might think that I am purposefully understating other bad things about California like the freeway traffic, but that is just not something that very often darkens our door. Some of that is because we don’t live in the very congested L.A. Basin, where the traffic problems are far worse. The other reason is that what traffic concerns we have are more easily avoidable for the retirement set since we don’t commute and can often just avoid the freeways at difficult times. We still have the big reconstruction project underway on the I-15, but it has turned into a non-event for us for the most part. I can honestly say that Kim and I have only had to suffer one traffic jam in the past several months and while it was on the I-15, it was due to some unusual incident and not just due to normal traffic patterns. I know from living in the NYC metro area for a long time that traffic angst was a far bigger issue to me back east than it has ever been out here. In some ways, it is why we chose to live in the North County area of San Diego whee we are within 30 minutes drive of anything we want in San Diego and yet for day-to-day purposes we are mostly in exurbia with a quick five minute drive into the rural area of the county where the country and mountain roads make for nice motorcycle riding if the spirit so moves me. We have managed to choose a peaceful place from which to contemplate the world as it goes by in all its craziness.
And speaking of driving, I am thoroughly enjoying my new EV truck, my new Ford F-150 Lightning. As much as I liked my Tesla X for the past seven years, I am somehow happier to be driving a good old Ford rather than some contraption built by Elon Musk, that Anti-Semitic hate monger of a centabillionaire. He brought me into the EV revolution and for that I am grateful, but he has proven to be as big a fascist as old Henry Ford was, and I am happy to be into some heavy Detroit metal rather than Silicon Valley wizardry. I got the very basic model of F-150 Lightning and despite lacking a few odd little things like the garage opener, it has all the bells and whistles that I really do need. I have returned to Sirius radio (I never left it in the Mercedes) and am happy not to have to contend with streaming my onboard radio entertainment as I did in the Tesla. Also, even though I have a Ford navigation system to fall back onto, I kinda like using CarPlay to get my GPS since Siri now reads me any texts that come in for me and lets me verbally respond and I have easy one-button access to my Audible books whenever I want. I have sorted out the charging by buying a simple adapter for my Tesla wall charger and it allows me to time my recharging overnight just like the Tesla did.
The size of the F-150 Lightning cab is also a real pleasure for me. Granted that the Tesla X was supposed to be an SUV, but it was more configured like a sedan and I was always feeling like I was sliding down into sedan rather than stepping up into an SUV. Now I am clearly stepping up into a very roomy and manly-sized truck cab that seems to better suit my stature. I have lots and lots of had room and space to spread out. It even has a fold down desk in the center console that makes me think that this was designed for mobile professionals like a contractor or such. That working attitude of the Ford just feels right for me. I haven’t completely gotten used to all the optionality of the electronics in the truck but it seems to give me everything I need and even has a few unexpected and useful extras. For instance, I can now remotely open and close my frunk (front trunk), which is very convenient.
One of the only things that required adjustment to driving style in the Tesla was to get used to regenerative braking, which is when the engine used the braking process to turn the alternator and generate some juice from the slowing down process. Ford seems to have taken this one step further by offering a functionality for one-pedal driving where you use only the accelerator as both the go and stop medium, only stepping on the brake in an emergency situation, but rarely in regular traffic. This is nothing more than an extreme version of regenerative braking, but it has an interesting side benefit that I never had on the Tesla. Since I live on a hilltop, I have to drive downhill to most anything. My daily routine has me going into San Marcos most days to go the gym or to Stretch-U or some such place. I find that the regenerative braking actually allows me to add a net energy surplus to my EV most mornings such that my errands actually add mileage to my truck rather than use it. The Ford system also has a functionality where it coaches you about how to maximize your use of the regenerative braking to get maximum added energy. Its actually very helpful and very cool. I can coast my way into a version of perpetual energy self-sufficiency. It is now officially my version of California Coastin’.