The weekend on July 6th my family took another trip to northern California (Chico area) looking for a house to rent. We looked at a few houses but most were too small or not very well kept. However the very first house we looked at was gorgeous, huge (about 1600 sq ft.) and in a perfect location near the high school so my teenage brother can walk to school. On Sunday we put down a deposit and signed a lease to rent the house so at the beginning of August we are moving to paradise, Paradise, CA that is.

A few pictures from the last trip.3

Canyon view from a look out area along Skyway (the main road from Chico to Paradise)


We also got a kick out of some of the street names and my teenage brother wanted to take pictures of them.

Which Way


My Way

For no particular reason here are a few pictures of my cat Puss-n-Boots.

Face closeup.


Looking soooo cute.

The weekend of 6/22 I took a trip to northern California (from Los Angeles) with my mom and teenage brother to see if the Chico area was really the place we wanted to move. We spent early Saturday looking at a couple of nearby cities (Oroville and Paradise)  before taking a look at Chico Saturday night and Sunday morning. Not really much to say about the towns themselves. All are great areas but everyone seemed to like Paradise best because it has a great small town feel with out being too small and has lots of trees (on the downside it is a high fire danger area). We will be taking another trip next week to look inside some houses and perhaps even sign a lease (if not we keep going back until we find something).

Some pictures of San Francisco from the trip, unfortunately we forgot take any in the Chico area and the great views from Skyway (the road leading to Paradise).

Golden Gate Bridge



TransAmerica Building


View from the top of Lombard Street.


Alcatraz


Monterey from a beach in Seaside, CA.

Some of the tools I have been using to search for places to move and gauge the local rental rates.

Sperling's Best Places a good site looking up population, crime, climate and other basic information on cties.
Google Maps to look for city names and look around the surrounding areas. Will also use it to plan a trip up north at the end of June to look around and nail down exactly where we want to move.
Google. Type in a city name followed by the word newspaper and you can usually find the newspaper for a city and view their classified section to look at housing prices.
Craigslist California. Another good source for finding local rent prices.

Right now we have seemed to settle on the Chico / Redding (California) area and will be taking a trip up there next weekend to look around and I will have another post then with pictures from the trip.

I currently live in Northridge (part of Los Angeles) and I am looking to rent a house so I can have more room for my business. Renting a house in this area would be just about impossible with house rents starting around $1800 and going up (way up) from there so moving out of the area is the only choice. I have been looking mostly in the Bakersfield, Fresno, Modesto and Chico areas. There seem to be plenty of houses available in my price range (3 bed / 2 bath with garage, $1300 or less). I have also looked around the coast (Lompoc, San Luis Obispo, Santa Maria, Salinas) but nothing near the coast really fits the rent range.

Anyone have other suggestions on where to look in California? Any comments on the cities I have mentioned?

Past The Mission By Tori Amos.

What was the number one hit on the day you were born? http://www.thisdayinmusic.com/member/birthdayno1.php

For me it is Fernando by ABBA number one song on the UK / Austrailia charts May 11, 1976, the number one song on the U.S. chart is not worth mentioning.