What's it like to live in Siskiyou County/Mount Shasta?

[xani]

Originally Posted by Sam1111

Hi! I recently moved to the Mount Shasta area. I am similar to you being from the Bay Area and vegetarian. no matter where you go in the world you will always find good people. This area is no exception. Unfortunately I have found that there are a lot of low quality people in the Mount Shasta area. By low-quality I mean unintelligent, ignorant, unsophisticated, bigoted, homophobic. I came here to live by the majestic mountain and to escape the chaos and high prices of urban living. It has been nearly two years and I have learned a lot about myself. The lack of amenities and the extremely low-caliber of community makes it unsustainable for me to continue living here. You will have a similar experience if you move here, I can tell from how I perceive your energy. In addition to the fundamentalist, prejudice 'Creepy-Christians' in this area you also get Super-Woo-Woo New Agers. Talk about whip-lash! A lot of polarity here. I miss being around level headed, thoughtful and intelligent people. Time to move!!!

Tell me about it....If you just visit briefly a couple of times, it may seem like a charming town, but Mt Shasta is a source of some real ghetto experience. No need to drive to LA. For example, in Rite Aid, uneducated, uncouth ghetto thug employees require people to surrender bags, with whatever cash, laptops contaning confidential corporate info, IDs, to be "stored" by them, etc and don't even let them peacefully refuse and walk out of the store, harassing them...never mind if you're a professional making enough not to need to steal their Chinese-made cheap crap. Or, the junkies all over town, police doing nothing about it (bag requirement is related to this ghetto-fication of the city, probably). Almost naked junkie sitting by Visitor Center menacing visitors, etc. Chief of Police proposing "Transients Welcoming Program" (this is not a joke). This will be like Chico soon, full of homeless camps and drugs. Much better to be in a small town way out there, than in this "Bay Area by the interstate 5"... too many Bay Area transplants had ruined the place already, it's like South Lake Tahoe in the making, plus the transients which are not in Tahoe. No, thanks ,I can take 350K for home puchase somewhere else, where it's actually peaceful and where people respect each other.

[NorthernFog]

Ever thought instead of the coast in northern CA? If you want a college-influenced town with a huge liberal element, consider Arcata. Arcata itself is very expensive because of the university but there are surrounding towns that are reasonable, given the caveat that California in general is not reasonable.

[NorthernFog]

Originally Posted by Sam1111

Hi! I recently moved to the Mount Shasta area. I am similar to you being from the Bay Area and vegetarian. no matter where you go in the world you will always find good people. This area is no exception. Unfortunately I have found that there are a lot of low quality people in the Mount Shasta area. By low-quality I mean unintelligent, ignorant, unsophisticated, bigoted, homophobic. I came here to live by the majestic mountain and to escape the chaos and high prices of urban living. It has been nearly two years and I have learned a lot about myself. The lack of amenities and the extremely low-caliber of community makes it unsustainable for me to continue living here. You will have a similar experience if you move here, I can tell from how I perceive your energy. In addition to the fundamentalist, prejudice 'Creepy-Christians' in this area you also get Super-Woo-Woo New Agers. Talk about whip-lash! A lot of polarity here. I miss being around level headed, thoughtful and intelligent people. Time to move!!!

I imagine (since you wrote this in 2016) that you've moved by now. If not (or maybe even if you have), you might consider Humboldt County. There's Garberville in southern Humboldt but it gets quite hot there in summer and might be too hippy-dippy for you but progressive-left elements are fairly educated and level-headed, just a bit radical.

The best area, in my view, is the Humboldt Bay Area. Although the main town (Eureka, 28,000, the largest in the county) has conservative elements, it has many progressives too. Arcata, home of Humboldt Stated University can be a bit too New Agey but with the university there, there a many older more well-balanced liberals/progressives.

I spent years dreaming of a very rural, even alpine or forest life but what I have found is that many of the people in those area are ranchers and loggers and hunters who don't like liberals. I've never lived in the town of Mt. Shasta but it's quite liberal I hear....on the other hand, too New Age, maybe. A poorer version of Sedona.

We live just north of Arcata where houses cost less. The only thing about the Humboldt coast--maybe especially for people from southern California, is the 38-42' of rain and some fog.
Compromise seems the name of the game. I once asked a guy who knew both the Arcata area and the Southwest if there was a place in the Southwest that was like Arcata but drier. Without hesitating a second, he said "Durango, CO." Maybe but it's expensive there. And isolated.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by NorthernFog

I imagine (since you wrote this in 2016) that you've moved by now. If not (or maybe even if you have), you might consider Humboldt County. There's Garberville in southern Humboldt but it gets quite hot there in summer and might be too hippy-dippy for you but progressive-left elements are fairly educated and level-headed, just a bit radical.

The best area, in my view, is the Humboldt Bay Area. Although the main town (Eureka, 28,000, the largest in the county) has conservative elements, it has many progressives too. Arcata, home of Humboldt Stated University can be a bit too New Agey but with the university there, there a many older more well-balanced liberals/progressives.

I spent years dreaming of a very rural, even alpine or forest life but what I have found is that many of the people in those area are ranchers and loggers and hunters who don't like liberals. I've never lived in the town of Mt. Shasta but it's quite liberal I hear....on the other hand, too New Age, maybe. A poorer version of Sedona.

We live just north of Arcata where houses cost less. The only thing about the Humboldt coast--maybe especially for people from southern California, is the 38-42' of rain and some fog.
Compromise seems the name of the game. I once asked a guy who knew both the Arcata area and the Southwest if there was a place in the Southwest that was like Arcata but drier. Without hesitating a second, he said "Durango, CO." Maybe but it's expensive there. And isolated.

Hi, N. Fog. What do you think of McKinleyville? I hear it's been growing leaps and bounds (relatively) the last few years. And what about Trinidad and Westhaven? I've been studying these areas online. Trinidad/Westhaven seems to have some interesting community activities, an arts center, museum. Seems like there's good things going on.

And how's the medical care in the area? The hospital in Arcata (along with the one in Eureka) gets very mixed reviews, almost scary, lol, but it seems that even good hospitals get complaints, so I don't know how to interpret that.

Does Humboldt have a good number of farms? Are there a lot of locally-grown products in the grocery stores? Is there a food co-op?

Thanks for any info you could provide.

[NW4me]

I have a friend who loves the Mt Shasta area and considered moving there
(his plans have changed now, but not for reasons relating to Mt Shasta).

He's white, his wife is Asian, but evidently in their visits they didn't encounter any hostility on that score.

The only downside of the area he mentioned was that they couldn't find any halfway-good restaurants

[evening sun]

Originally Posted by NW4me

I have a friend who loves the Mt Shasta area and considered moving there
(his plans have changed now, but not for reasons relating to Mt Shasta).

He's white, his wife is Asian, but evidently in their visits they didn't encounter any hostility on that score.

The only downside of the area he
mentioned was that they couldn't find any halfway-good restaurants

cook at home.

[NW4me]

Originally Posted by NW4me

I have a friend who loves the Mt Shasta area and considered moving there
(his plans have changed now, but not for reasons relating to Mt Shasta).

He's white, his wife is Asian, but evidently in their visits they didn't encounter any hostility on that score.

The only downside of the area he mentioned was that they couldn't find any halfway-good restaurants

Originally Posted by evening sun

cook at home.

That's what I'd do, but that's not my friend's M.O.

[Heal me]

Hello,

People who are Judgmental will always see the difficulties life presents, the difficulties other people with different views present. We live in a world were 2 billion human being live without water without electricity. We live in a world where 3500 children die of starvation every single day. Three million a year, and the list goes on. If you are OK with yourself within, then it should be pretty easy to live in such a Spiritual place like Mount Shasta, perhaps all those supposed so called poor unintelligent people are there for the same reason people with lots of intelligence and plenty of money are there. We are all oneness, we are all trying to figure who we are, why we are, and where we are. As for the supposed Super-woo-woo New agers, even the mere consideration that we would call them that, .. that we would judge them for there views and ways of living, is profoundly ignorant. Jut being in this body, just living on this planet that moves at a break neck speed, around a Sun at 68,000 miles an hour is Woo-Woo. Best to keep an open heart, for it is there that you will truly learn who you are, why you are and where you are.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by Heal me

Hello,

People who are Judgmental will always see the difficulties life presents, the difficulties other people with different views present. We live in a world were 2 billion human being live without water without electricity. We live in a world where 3500 children die of starvation every single day. Three million a year, and the list goes on. If you are OK with yourself within, then it should be pretty easy to live in such a Spiritual place like Mount Shasta, perhaps all those supposed so called poor unintelligent people are there for the same reason people with lots of intelligence and plenty of money are there. We are all oneness, we are all trying to figure who we are, why we are, and where we are. As for the supposed Super-woo-woo New agers, even the mere consideration that we would call them that, .. that we would judge them for there views and ways of living, is profoundly ignorant. Jut being in this body, just living on this planet that moves at a break neck speed, around a Sun at 68,000 miles an hour is Woo-Woo. Best to keep an open heart, for it is there that you will truly learn who you are, why you are and where you are.

Thank you for this message. Now, since it seems clear that you live there, could you tell us how the water supply has been the last five or six years, and the weather? Have summers been hotter, generally?

[OmNamahShivaya]

Originally Posted by Sam1111

Hi! I recently moved to the Mount Shasta area. I am similar to you being from the Bay Area and vegetarian. no matter where you go in the world you will always find good people. This area is no exception. Unfortunately I have found that there are a lot of low quality people in the Mount Shasta area. By low-quality I mean unintelligent, ignorant, unsophisticated, bigoted, homophobic. I came here to live by the majestic mountain and to escape the chaos and high prices of urban living. It has been nearly two years and I have learned a lot about myself. The lack of amenities and the extremely low-caliber of community makes it unsustainable for me to continue living here. You will have a similar experience if you move here, I can tell from how I perceive your energy. In addition to the fundamentalist, prejudice 'Creepy-Christians' in this area you also get Super-Woo-Woo New Agers. Talk about whip-lash! A lot of polarity here. I miss being around level headed, thoughtful and intelligent people. Time to move!!!

Hello Sam1111 - I am in bay area for past 14 years and now considering moving somewhere out where rents are affordable and close to nature. So would love to hear your recommendations on Mt Shasta.