I vacationed in the mountains of Ojai, California last week.  Here’s what I observed.

The Top 10 Signs You’re Not in L.A. Anymore

1.  You’re surrounded by green trees and mountains nearly everywhere you go.

2.  Each morning you awake to the sounds of a natural river running right outside your bedroom door.

3.  You can drink the tap water unfiltered, without fear of disease or infection.

4.  Your neighbor apologizes for the loud noises at 1am (not party music, but the sound of two chickens being attacked by a wild animal).

5.  You go the speed limit (35mph) on a one-lane road, and NO ONE hunks their horn at you or tailgates you. (Although they do pass you by quickly once the road splits into two lanes.)

6.  People drive big trucks not for show, but because they actually need them to haul stuff (like hay, animals, and the like).

7.  You drive to the beach and find a parking spot in the first lot you drive into.

8.  You park your car in that lot and nearly gasp when you learn that you don’t have to pay to park.

9.  You go for a 1 ½ hour hike and only run into two other people the entire time.

10.  As you walk back to your cabin along the side of the road, you are approached by a man in a car asking if you’d like him to take picture of you.  You say no and he makes a u-turn, approaches you again, this time asking if you need a ride.  You say no again and start to get scared.  Is he lurking behind the next curve, waiting to grab you?  As you contemplate how you will fight him off if it comes to that, another man slows down to ask if you need a ride.  You say no.  You wonder if the people here are genuinely that nice, or if you’re going to end up like those chicks that end up in polaroid pictures on the desks of police detectives in episodes of CSI.  But, you make it back to your cabin unscathed and realize that the people here really are that nice.