10 Best Wide Toe Box Tennis Shoes

Best Wide Toe Box Tennis Shoes in 2023

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Roadtrip: Moving to Southern California on a Shoestring Budget

Though many young hopefuls head to Hollywood in search of fame, southern California is a vast and offers many exciting options. The author of this article moved there from central Florida in May 2020 and would like to share all the details with you.

Popular wisdom states that you don't want to quit a job unless you have another one lined up. In Florida I was working 60-70 hours a week at two jobs: convenience retail cashier and answering service operator. For three months leading up to my big move I searched jobs within a twenty mile radius of Colton, the town where my sweetheart lived. Some companies actually responded through email though most suggested that I come and apply after making California my new home. After much thought, I realized that I could afford to spend time looking for a new job especially since the customer service industry is known for high turnover and is perpetually hiring. My gentleman friend offered that I could stay with him as long as I needed to get settled and that he would charge me little or not rent. "It would just be so good to have you here," he said.

Still, to make absolutely sure I was entering this new venture with eyes wide open, I arranged for a week long vacation/business trip to get acquainted with my potential new home. The flight from Orlando to the Los Angeles/Ontario airport takes six hours when you count the layover time for a connecting flight (in this case Salt Lake City). The plane touched down during a chilly, overcast day in early May. I picked up the rent-a-car (the internet is a wonderful tool for getting the best weekly rate possible) and followed the map to my boyfriend's house. Though I had already made two trips to California, once to San Diego and once to Burbank, the stunning differences from Florida continued to amaze me. The only other mountains I'd ever seen were the Smokies in Tennessee, the Catskills in New York, and the Berkshires in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The nearby 7,000 foot peaks of the San Bernardino National Forest make all of those look like ceremonial mounds, however.

The southern California freeway system is overwhelming. Central Florida is a congested car culture, also, but while basically one major interstate runs through Orlando, I-4, there were a choice of three freeways to take to get to my boyfriend's home: the 60, the 15, and the 10. Luckily, during my visit, he did most of the driving. We went out to dinner, to a Sunday morning Swap Meet, which is the west coast name for "flea market," and saw most of the nearby sights and shopping. I applied for two jobs during the week and also rode the Metrolink to Hollywood and Beverly Hills to do the tourist thing. The week ended very quickly, as vacations do, and it was time to get down to the real work of moving.

Most people advised that I lighten my load by getting rid of everything except what I genuinely needed. That led to six year's worth of accumulated books and knick knacks being donated to a Christian charity. In the end there would still be a studio apartment full of furniture and personal effects to move. I would also need to get my Mazda Protege across the country somehow. Traditional, "Mayflower" style commercial movers, with me driving my car out west was the most expensive method, nearly four thousand dollars. Next, there was the rent-a-truck approach, which had two options: attach a trailer hitch to my car and tow a box with my stuff in it (impossible since my car doesn't have the power) or rent a small moving truck and tow my car. You could select a towing dolly or a flat trailer for the car and it would cost close to $2,500 without even figuring in the fuel cost.

Luckily there was another option, an ingenious thing called the U-Pack storage container through the ABF freight company. For a flat fee, ABP will deliver a storage container measuring about ten by eight feet which you can then fill and an ABF rig will pick it up. They will then drive the container across the country for you and deliver it to the terminal closest to your new home. When you are ready, you just call them and they deliver the container to you! The price for all this was a very reasonable $1,400 and change. When the ABF truck delivered the container I was surprised by how durable it was, like a storage shed fortified by narrow steel bands at the cubic perimeters. The floor seemed to be made of solid aluminum raised atop metal skids. After the cube had been filled with my furniture, the driver came by and loaded it onto the semi trailer with a forklift truck.

This left the business of driving across the country. I decided to make three stops: northwestern Alabama, Oklahoma City, and Albuquerque. My best friend had moved to the Muscle Shoals/Tuscumbia area three years before and this was the perfect opportunity to visit her and her husband. It is a quaint, fairly picturesque area where the pace of life seems much slower than in all the other southeastern metropolises. I stayed with them for two days. During the next leg of the trip I stopped for awhile in Memphis, since my boyfriend is an Elvis fan and showed up at Graceland to hunt for souvenirs. They had a cool t-shirt with a beautiful silk screen of Elvis riding a Harley. Once I jumped back in the car I decided to make a game of things by refusing to set foot in the state of Arkansas. Dusk approached and my gas gauge needle tickled the "E" by the time I passed Fort Smith and the "Welcome to Oklahoma" sign appeared. It would be thirty miles to the next gas station, which made me sweat a little, but I made it.

There are at least four national hotel chains which offer a nice, clean room in the $40 to $50 range. It took three tries to find the location I had reserved in Oklahoma City and when I finally arrived close to midnight, I aimed myself at the bed and fell into it for a deep sleep. To keep down meal costs, I settled on a hearty breakfast at a sit down restaurant and a good meal at a buffet type restaurant during the early afternoon. In Oklahoma City I paid the lowest amount for gas, around $2.50, and received the best breakfast at a local yokel place which served yummy biscuits and sausage gravy with expertly prepared over-easy eggs and a fresh fruit cup.

The American landscape began to change once my little red car made it to western Oklahoma and the sliver of Texas containing Amarillo, where they had an excellent Oriental buffet. The earth suddenly opened up into a vista of wide open spaces with gently rolling terrain and the foliage changed to scraggly looking trees and brush. Soon I reached the border of New Mexico, whose state motto is "Land of Enchantment" and I'd heard many stories about Native American legends and UFOs and how the veil to the other side seems thinner in many areas of this state compared to other places. Gradually rising cliffs gave way to majestic clay mesas and buttes which rose further to the high peaks surrounding Albuquerque. Along the highway many trading posts sold beautiful Native American handcrafted moccasins, leatherwear and blouses along with beguiling dolls and sparkling crystal and turquoise jewelry.

At another inexpensive but comfortable motel near downtown Albuquerque I called both my mother and boyfriend. They both said the same thing: if I became tired driving the next day, don't hesitate to find another motel and stop. It would be a little more than 900 miles from Albuquerque to southern California, about the same distance from Orlando to Cincinnati. I had traveled that trip in one day before, alone. Yet, the 900 miles to the west coast would pass through the desolate, barren and potentially dangerous desert country from the Grand Canyon all the way to San Bernardino. Maybe it was the tedium of five days of driving catching up with me or the afternoon heat and bright sun but around the Grand Canyon, I started to feel exhausted. Luckily there was an old-time mom and pop motel that only charged $27.50 per night! I arrived at about four thirty in the afternoon and told the lady at the desk about my plans to finish up my cross country trip the next morning. She said it might be best if I left in the small hours of the night. That way I would drive through the desert in cool weather.

When I woke up at one a.m. and started out on the final leg of my trip, the temperature was in the 40's. Yikes! It kept me alert, though as I-40 led through the loneliest and most barren miles of the trip. Semi rigs had been outlined in neon piping which helped me feel less alone as I drove. Of course, I was also excited about re-uniting with my boyfriend in another few hours. By daybreak I had passed through Needles and drove past the lunar style terrain of the Mohave desert until I reached Barstow, where I would change to the 15 freeway and descend seventy miles downward to Colton. By noon I was in my boyfriend's arms.

After taking it easy for the rest of that weekend and through the Memorial Day holiday, I started looking for work. Incredibly on the first day I was offered a job doing electronic assembly! That was in early June, 2020 and my stay here in California has had lots of ups and downs ever since, which will be covered in my next article about how to live in southern California on one thousand dollars per month.