Tell me about Vacaville

I think if you turn on the faucet then water will come out, and there are some mountains, if you're willing to drive a while.

I really don't know anything about Vacaville except that I've driven through it about a million times on my way to somewhere else, and sometimes we used to stop at VacaJoe's to eat.

I don't think VacaJoe's is there anymore.

That's too bad. I liked saying, "VacaJoe's!!!"

it does not look like a sterotypical rural cow town, although it has some of those qualities is much bigger with far more shops and restaraunts and the like. its really pretty boring and i cant think of anything notable about it, although im sure there are some perks im not aware of, having never lived there or spent much time there...my experience has been driving thru vacaville on the 80 heading up north, and stopping for fast food lunch in the strip malls along either side of the highway...the strip malls are surrounded by suburb style streets and homes, and the whole town is surrounded by small hills and otherwise pretty flat and boring open space. again, im sure there are nice places to hike and some fun things to do here and there, but they are not immediately apparent just driving thru and eating lunch 50-ish times over the past 10 years or so. there are some worthwhile grocery stores and they have a chick-fil-a are probably the high points of my time there, lol

but to be honest many suburbs in the bay area are either uppity tight ass WASP neighborhoods, just plain boring and culturally vacuous, or filled with borderline unbearable amounts of kids ages 15-20 playing wannabe gangster...not dangerous, just...insufferable. there are plenty of nice places to live, but if you are looking for the world class food/art/culture/counterculture the bay is known for, the main upside to vacaville and most other bay area suburbs is simply their proximity to oakland and SF. its kind of analagous to the concept of bedroom communities, where you have a town with not many jobs and not much going on because a huge percentage of the population basically just sleeps there and they commute into a large urban area where all the jobs are...its like that but for culture. there is plenty of work in most bay area suburbs, but if you want to do anything really fun, see a good concert, see some good art, eat great food etc you go to oakland or sf and some surrounding areas.

vacaville is nice because although you are a bit further away from oakland/sf than many other bay area suburbs, you are much closer to napa, which is awesome, and then mendocino/sonoma county a bit north of that which is also awesome, and you are much closer to sacramento, where great food and culture are harder to find but is 100% present, and thru sac you can head north to nevada county, which is one of my favorite rural areas in the whole state, and IMO is home to the finest cannabis growing climate in CA, and likely the world...mendo and humboldt have the history and clout, but the best climate is in grass valley, penn valley, and the dobbins/brownsville area a bit north in yuba county. all in all most bay area suburbs are pretty nice places to live, and the ability to go down to oakland/sf or up north to sonoma/mendo generally makes up for how boring most of the burbs are over here.

what sort of things are you looking for in a town to live in?

 

we used to stop at the Milk Farm to eat- that was a LONG time ago- up the road from Vaca. It ain't no cowtown no more . -Nothing is a cowtown in that part of Calif. -Very crowded.

Centrally located and as cultural as anywhere. 

When I was a small kid, the most exciting thing about Vacaville was the Nut Tree, which we always stopped at when driving between Salinas/Monterey and Lake Tahoe area.

http://www.nuttreeusa.com/history/

In the mid-late '70s, my dad had a friend who was stationed in nearby Travis Air Force Base and we spent some time touring the base and staying in the bachelor officers' quarters (BOQ's) - it seemed pretty cool at the time.  They still hold free air shows, budget and pandemic willing...

Don't know about the community, but I imagine that there may still be a military/conservative presence in the area.

Does culture mean live music venues and weed stores?

i think anywhere on the entire western side of the rockies you will be dealing with fires/smoke...kinda no escaping it out west.

vacaville has a prison or 2 nearby.

I recall having some good Mexican food there. Forget the place. So there you have it.

I've lived less than two hours from Vacaville for ten years and can't tell you a damn thing about it. IDK?

The hopmonk in sebastopol is 65 miles 

Petaluma is 45 miles 

TXR is 45 miles 

Berkeley is 40 miles

Bodega bay is 75 miles

SF is 55 miles

Santa Cruz is 100 miles

 

Boreal is 120 miles

I'm supposedly a Canadian citizen, but I haven't gotten around to securing the necessary documentation.

 

Starting to think about it...Again

Vacaville? Meh I discovered I needed to be close to the ocean...

^I hear ya, Brother.