Very interesting map.
It was interesting to me...my wife and I went to San Diego for a week a couple of years ago, neither one of us had ever been there, and we loved the climate, very comfortable, not too hot (late spring) but apparently there had been a drought for a while, and everything was brown, brown, brown.
We took a red-eye home, landing back in Boston around 6 am, and had a taxi take us the thirty miles home to the west.
The contrast was stunning to me. As we drove down this rural New England road on a sunny Sunday morning, the sun was streaming through the lush green trees in crepuscular rays, with just a hint of mist rising through them. We saw a deer on the side of the road...
We just take it all for granted, like people who live near the ocean and simply stop seeing it and hearing it. But after a week in a very arid Southern California, it was breathtaking to come home.
The politics up here are absolute crap, but it sure can be beautiful country.
It is obvious you’re not a Californian. That isn’t brown! What you saw was “golden.”
I’ve been in California almost 40 years and I still haven’t adjusted to everything being “golden” from May to October and then greening up in the winter. My wife (a native California) suffers the reverse problem when we travel east.
After spending some time in the Southwest years ago, I was always king of amazed of how brown every thing was. When back home in Western PA, a met a couple who were from Tucson and they were amazed by how green every thing was.
I guess it boils down to what you are used to.