Where I've Lived Meme

Shamelessly stolen from hallbera:

Name the towns where you have lived from earliest to now. GO!

1. Windom, Minnesota - I was born there and lived there until I was just 10. Dinky little town of less than 2,000 people that, at the time, had two stoplights on the 4-lane highway. You could stand in the middle of the street (which was that 4-lane highway) and look either way and see all the way out the other end of town.

2. Arroyo Grande, California - Grew up there. Went through culture-shock in moving from a >2,000 population place to an area with over 25,000 (at the time), not to mention going from a sheltered, Mid-Western environment to California Beach-front Cool.

3. Fresno, California - Went to university there (have a BA in Spanish.) Fresno is huge compared to Arroyo Grande (at the time, it was 200,000 - now it's around 300,000+.) It's in the middle of the San Juaquin Valley, so it has to rain to see the hills either on the west or the Sierra Nevadas to the east. When the air is clear, the horizon is great. Unfortunately, the haze is clear maybe 14 days out of the year. I hated not having hills close! Came home to visit a LOT.

4. Pismo Beach, California - Moved there directly after getting married, as Pismo is in the same general area as Arroyo Grande. This was before the gentrification process started there - had a 2nd story apartment that could see the ocean. But hassling with the tourist traffic and idiot mentality was a huge PITA.

5. Grover Beach, California - Moved here briefly when the stairs to the place in Pismo got too rickety to be safe.

6. Nipomo Mesa (out in the country) - Rented a small house on an orchid farm out in the countryside. Learned how to raise orchids, got pregnant with my first (a daughter) and enjoyed the peace.

7. Grover Beach, California - Into a different unit in the same apartment complex. Were the resident managers there for 2 years, during which time I got pregnant with twins.

8. Arroyo Grande, California - My mom & dad decided their 4 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 kitchen, 2 living-room house was too big for just the 2 of them, and since we had twins on the way... (fraternal boys.) Hubby helped with the remodeling. We still live in that house, 28 years later. It's a 100-yr-old California ranch-style house with LOTS of character (which what one calls the things that end up being black holes into which one pours money from time to time.)