Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Up with U.S. Geography: California

California is the fourth of the eight states I've lived in to make the list! At the time of this post, my husband & I have lived in SoCal for just over five years and plan to stay at least until retirement age.

State Name:
California

Capital:
Sacramento

Date of Entry:
September 9, 1850

Maps:
Map of USA. California outlined in dark ink &
with name written on it.

A close-up of California & its neighbors.

Neighbors:
Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Mexico

Water Borders:
Lake Tahoe, Colorado River, Pacific Ocean, San Francisco Bay

Total Area:
163,696 square miles

Five Largest Cities:
Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Fresno

Famous Geographical Point:
Mt. Whitney

State Nickname:
The Golden State. Well, California first experienced explosive population growth after gold was discovered here. Also, the state is known for its sunsets & fields of poppies (the state flower). And apparently, gold is one of our official state colors!

Famous Person:
Ansel Adams, landscape photographer & environmentalist

Book Set In/About:
East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Set in Salinas Valley, this novel follows the lives of two intertwined families, with strong parallels to Biblical tales.

Movie Set In/About:
“Shelter” (2007), directed by Jonah Markowitz

A young man who’s given up his dreams of art school to help raise his nephew finds himself slowly falling for his best friend’s older brother. I chose this film not only because it’s beautiful but also because each of the main characters represents a different side of SoCal, one poor, one wealthy.

Headline of the Day:
“California Governor Signs Executive Order Stopping State's Death Penalty for Now” on cnn.com.

2 comments:

Patricia said...

I had not heard the death penalty was halted in California.

I love how big the state is, both population-wise and geographically. It seems like a great state to live in because its size can encompass so much!

balyien said...

Yeah, I think that's the thing people don't understand about California. They think it's this liberal hippie beach surfing Utopia, when in fact it's massively diverse in pretty much every way imaginable: geographically, politically, racially, etc.