I live in New York, but even here wonder sometimes how people put up with the political and tax environment in CA - and I realize from my fairly regular visits to CA, its exactly things like you are showing - beautiful weather and scenery.
I’m jealous. Looks like a fantastic way to spend a day.
I was born in West Chester County and lived there as an infant and toddler for a couple years. Grew up in upstate NY. Found my way to CA after college and that was the end of the moving for me. Dealing with the politics and taxes here is absolutely brutal and it just keeps getting worse every year. But CA is so spectacular and the weather so good it is very hard to leave. The amazing thing is that, even with 5 million people around us, it’s very easy to go 10 or 15 minutes into the hills, hike a mile, and be completely isolated and roaming with the mountain lions. Yesterday, NickCarraway posted an article about a bear sighting next door to Carmel, CA! Soon we’ll have bears AND lions to worry about.
The reason high-tech has always been a key driver starts not just with the Gold rush, but shortly afterward. Consider that the "moon shot" of its day was putting the trans-continental railroad through across the Sierra. Common knowledge focuses on the struggle of manual laborers, such as the Irish & Chinese, but little thought it given to the scientists & engineers. Well, how did Cal, Stanford and CalTech get seeded with talent?
Once the railway was completed (and a decade later a spur to SoCal), the state's agriculture industry took off, benefiting from huge surpluses created by perfect growing conditions ie the weather. With ready transport, the state was able to supply the rest of the country with fresh produce, a role it continues today. The citrus industry in SoCal was especially valuable (and vulnerable), which prompted Beckman to invent certain measuring devices. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Orville_Beckman) Beckman financed Fairchild up in Santa Clara - it could have just as easily been Pasadena by CalTech - which of course launched the Silicon valley.
A second prong was aerospace. Again, because of the perfect weather, flyers, researchers, scientists and engineers could fly year round. Being able to conduct business 365/24/7 provided a huge leg up on the rest of the world. It was such an obvious location, that a brilliant engineer named Donald Douglas was recruited from MIT to come out west. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Wills_Douglas_Sr.) The rest is history, including manufacture of the Mustang (https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004680759/) and the F-18 fuselage using the same facilities by LAX.
Last, but not least, is of course Hollywood. Again, perfect weather allows for filming/TV production 365/24/7.
I should mention real estate, because some people do still move here because of the weather, but it's primarily the weather/geography that created the economic conditions in the first place to drive real estate values that is the key salient point.
People who disparage and/or criticize Calif for its political leanings (yes, it was momentarily conservative for around 20 years after WWII), don't realize it's always had an undercurrent - and now dominant - socialist streak. If you know the score, you know it's just the cost of doing business. That is, you cannot remove one from the other.
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As to your photos, I like the last one of Mavericks. Looks kind of flat, however. LOL. And yeah, fall is by far and away the best season. I used to say, no one moved here because of the summers. While summer is nice, it's the unbelievable perfection during fall/winter that is the thing that strikes most visitors.