Escalon

Okay, so Escalon is the kind of town where when you look it up on Google Maps, Starbucks is a major landmark. That gives you a sense of the scale of this one-horse town. (Btw the horse is name Sal--he’s the second landmark. That’s a joke, but I’m not kidding. This is a small place for a city gal like me.)

Came here over the long holiday weekend to check out the bf’s childhood home. Supposedly Escalon has put the brakes on new housing developments, but I saw tons of new homes there including one of those adobe walled, red tiled roof neighborhoods that are so popular now. Big wide streets; clean, clean clean--just that very nice look that is so appealing now. So I’m not sure if they just slowed down growth or what?

Anyway, homes here in Escalon are even cheaper than in Manteca--probably because it is too far from the Bay Area for commuters. It is, however, just 10 miles or so north of Modesto, which has its own charms. The average home here barely reaches $200,000. Very cheap.

As to schools, they are pretty strong with Escalon High school being well above average and the middle school that feeds into it being just so so.

There are some drawbacks to living in farm country however. One is the weather. Fog for what seems like weeks on end in the winter. (Another reason you don’t want to try to commute from here if you value your life the other being that Sacramento is more than an hour away and San Jose, San Francisco, Walnut Creek even are more than 2 hours away.) Then the summers are hot as hot gets--no cooling coastal winds out here. The other reason you might not like the climate here is that you will get your fair share of pesticides and such as well. During the summer when the crops are being reaped, if you get a windy day you will definitely find out if you have any allergies, because all sorts of stuff will blow into town. (I have seen people in Davis, CA resort to surgical masks during the spring and summer to protect themselves.) That just comes with the territory.

So that is pretty much it. Not my kind of place, but okay if you have a job in the area and are married with kids I guess.