I get a kick out of people's reactions at the dog park when they ask me where I live. Invariably, when I tell them we (my dog, Vinko, and I) come from Landers, I'll get a variation on "way out there?" that never fails to make me smile.
I then correct them (frequently by asking why everyone has that reaction) and they back down, and sometimes the subject gets dropped and sometimes they ask more about my living arrangements or whatever. The reason I get such a charge out of it comes from an old saying and also this map:
First, the old saying, "One hundred years is a long time for Americans and one hundred miles is a long way for Englishmen."
I have to say I think that's true, and not just for Englishmen but for everyone in Europe and the old world. We in America don't have anything very old, not compared to what they have, so we get all excited about some building or other that dates back to the 1800s or, in Los Angeles terms, to the 1960s. It's sort of like what Erma Bombeck said to someone who was in her twenties: I've got cookie sheets older than that.
In the US, at least in the western part, one hundred miles isn't considered very far at all, maybe a two hour trip by car. Just about everyone I've known has driven many times those sort of distances on vacations or to shop or go to events, and no one's made a very big deal about it, but I realize a lot of people in Europe or elsewhere were born, lived, and died in the place they were born and never ventured more than a day's walk from their home.
On the map it's a little over ten miles (16km) from Landers, where I live, to Yucca Valley and a couple more to the dog park. That's about the same distance from Yucca Valley to Morongo Valley and just a little less than the trip from Yucca Valley to Joshua Tree.
I should note that Yucca Valley is by far the largest of the towns in the Morongo Basin, boasting over 25,000 people.
But, and here's what gets me, everyone in Yucca (as I call it) acts as if Landers is on the other side of the planet. Now, I admit that there's not much of a reason for any of them to drive up here for a visit, but if they want to go to Victorville or Barstow or Las Vegas, they have to drive through it, and maybe that's their only experience of the place.
But, really, people, c'mon.
Most of the residences in Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree, and Morongo Valley are all within a mile of highway 62, which runs east to west on the map. The other highway, 247, runs from the 62 up to Victorville and passes through a couple of small places that even I consider "too far" out to live in. One of those is Johnson Valley, which is mostly an off road driving place and site of the annual War of the Hammers, and then there's Lucerne Valley where you can turn to drive up to Big Bear.
Along the way to Victorville, I might add, you go through Apple Valley, which is where my congressional representative has his home and also the nearest Best Buy. It takes close to an hour to make that drive, and I can't say that I do it a lot. Not in the summer, anyway.
Our little Morongo Basin, however, with its handful of towns, is home to maybe about fifty thousand people all told, and as someone used to driving forty-five minutes to work each day, I can visit any of them in less time than it used to take me to do that.
And, yet, despite the old saying, in Morongo Basin, it seems ten miles is a long way, even along paved, straight, and empty desert roads where you can actually drive the whole way at highway speeds. Also, anything from earlier than the sixties is ancient, so we test positive for both sides of the saying.
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