Friday, August 20, 2010

FRIDAY AFTERNOON IN THE PARKING LOT

This is 5 o'clock traffic in Santa Cruz, CA. The exit on the right is mine. At the bottom of the exit turn left under the freeway and I live in the area. The widened part of the freeway in the top center of the photo was completed last year. It took 3+ years to complete. It was done to alleviate a bottleneck that was a serious safety hazard. So now that it is finished......
 


























it has pushed the bottleneck about a mile farther down the road. Now there are plans to widen another section that will probably take another 3+ years and then what? Our little town used to be known for
"the newly wed and nearly dead" place to be. People would come here to get married. It used to be romantic being a sleepy coastal town about an hour from the San Francisco Bay Area and a population of 6+ million people. For many years it was a great place to retire. It was quiet and except in the summer, not much happened. Of course in the early 60's the University of California opened a campus here and everything changed. Good and bad. When I arrived in the mid-seventies, it was "hippyville". The Volkswagon Van capitol of the world along with the "dog in the back of a pickup" capitol as well. Lots of people came here to drop out. I did but it only lasted for a short while. Now it's become a very expensive place to live and 85,000 cars go from here to Silicon Valley every week. A lot of these cars are filled with people that commute at least 40 miles one-way "over the hill" to go to work.  I'm glad I live here and I know when not to try and go anywhere on the freeway.

No comments:

About Me

My photo
Santa Cruz, CA, United States
I am a very shy introverted photographer. My psycho-therapist says that I may be able to come out of my shell almost any time now.