California oddities

As a native Mid-westerner relocated to NoCal, there's been some things I've observed that strike me as odd.

- The only 24 hour store we've found is Walgreen's. Even the closest Wal-Mart closes at 11:00 pm! Wal-Mart! I thought Wal-Mart being open 24 hours was a universal constant. Not so. On top of this, many stores close by 7:00 pm. The biggest problem is if one needs or wants something after 10:00 pm, there's few places available. As noted, we recently found that the Walgreen's nearby is open 24 hours and they have $1.00 ice cream pints for sale.

- Banks without drive-ups. In addition to the oddity of CA banks holding your deposits for seven business days for the first month you have the account, I have not seen a single bank with a drive-up teller window.

- No rain yet things stay green. It's rained once since we've gotten here and it was noted that since records had been kept it had never rained on that day before. Some of this is accounted for by regular lawn watering and such. Also, I've noticed that there's a lot of public areas, medians and such that don't have grass but rather a mix of mulch and a variety of viney ground cover and bushes. I guess that the local bushes, trees and such handle the lack of rain better. I'll have to investigate this further.

- Everything is in close proximity. So much so that I've only filled the tank once since we got our apartment. I've heard that many locals consider something two miles distant to be out-of-the-way by a large amount, though that was second-hand information.

These are what occurs to me at this time. I'll let you know if I come up with any more.