Thursday, July 24, 2008

The Oilfields of Bakersfield

Last Sunday when we went to the zoo, we passed through the lovely town of Oildale which got it's name from the-you guessed it-oilfields of Bakersfield. I forget how huge these oilfields are and how ugly ugly ugly they are.

Most of Bakersfield is flat as a pancake, but there is a part of town that is built on the bluffs overlooking the river. The street on top of the bluff is appropriately called Panorama Drive, and it's a nice street with houses and trees on one side and a strip of park and walkways on the bluff side. The view is spectacular, but it's mostly oilfields, which as I said are ugly ugly ugly unless of course you OWN those oilfields and then I guess you see lots of green when you look at them.
The pictures look way better than the actual scenery here-the thousands of oilwells are just little specks off in the distance here. You can see the river with actual water running in it in the foreground, plus a canal that diverts some of the water.
We were looking at this view and imagining the first settlers who came to Bakersfield looking at this same view back before all the oilwells went up. In the spring when the hills were green and the river was running wild it must have been really pretty.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

ahhh... these pictures take me back to when I used to live in California... I lived in the bay area Concord/Martinez area, and gosh... such lovely yellow plain rolling hills... right. like that's pretty... but you're right, in the spring when things are green, it really is beautiful. Oregon is much the same, and i'm enjoying the rain for that reason. ♥