D'Arcy Fallon:
A Californian's anthem: Colorado, here I come

I mention this without apologies, although lately Californians have replaced Texans as this state's favorite whipping boys. These days, Californians get blamed for everything from the high price of North End Victorians to traffic jams on Interstate 25.

When I left the San Francisco Bay Area in 1990 for Colorado Springs, it was a place under siege. Everybody I knew wanted out: We were fed up with traffic, astronomically priced real estate, pollution, crime, and overcrowded schools filled with precocious, coke-snorting kids.

If I'd had a moat, I would've pulled up the drawbridge every night. But I didn't. Like everybody else I knew, I commuted to work, and when I arrived at my job, I was frustrated, tired and mad that I had to shell out $2 for the honor of creeping bumper-to-bumper over the Golden Gate Bridge.

At the time, my husband and I were living north of San Francisco in yuppified Marin County, in a laid-back little town called Woodacre. It had atmosphere. It had sun. It had redwoods. And it had history. (Janis Joplin used to hang out there.) But, like all of Marin and most of the Bay Area, it was god-awful expensive.

We lived in a 900-square-foot house shaped like an Airstream trailer that we had bought in 1986 for $118,000. The kitchen was the size of a postage stamp, and the floor in the bathroom was ... spongy. If you walked in there with your eyes closed, you could feel the carpet give beneath your feet and imagine hiking in The Everglades.

Fortunately, we had a hot tub on the back deck, shaded by an overgrown acacia tree. On those days when the house seemed especially claustrophobic, I sat in the hot tub and pretended -- like Virginia Woolf -- that I had a room of my own.

In those years -- the mid-'80s -- every time we went to a dinner party, the topic was the same. People weren't talking about culture or politics. They weren't talking about their children or the 49ers.

They were talking about real estate. I swear. What they paid for their house. What they could get for their house if they sold it tomorrow. Where they would move if they sold their house tomorrow. That was usually when the conversation petered out, because moving to an affordable, larger house usually meant going somewhere very far and very strange, like Alabama.

If this sounds shallow to all you folks living in a four-bedroom, ranch-style home in Briargate, all I can say is: It was.

It was also human.

In California, we were all looking for a slice of Lake Wobegon, a place of significance that would imbue our lives with meaning -- if only we could come up with the down payment!

For awhile, my husband and I were fine in the Airstream, which was perched on the side of a steep hill like the slippery, second layer of a frosted birthday cake.

Then we had a baby, acquired more furniture, and adopted a headstrong, disobedient Airedale named Molly who chased the neighbor's Nubian goats until he threatened to shoot her with his hunting rifle. Maybe we should move, we murmured to each other. But where?

The Bay Area, as much as I loved it, wasn't particularly hospitable unless you were rich -- and we weren't rich by a long shot. Life was a hassle.

During the day, I parked my car in the Mission District near The San Francisco Examiner, where I worked as a reporter. On at least three occasions, someone broke into it. Once, someone smashed the window of my Rabbit and ripped off a box of Pampers, a bottle of Tanqueray and a bag of Doritos. I figured the thief was a really hungry, incontinent drunk.

The Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 gave us another nudge. The day it hit, I was pumping gas at a self-serve station in San Rafael. My car bounced; the ground jiggled like Jell-O with shock waves. I was petrified that something might have happened to my son, and my husband, who was often on the road.

We took the hint. The following spring, we moved to Colorado Springs. We like it here, even if it has become a little too crowded and pricey. Go ahead and blame it on us, the Californians, if you want to. We're impervious to snide comments. We'll just think all that arm-waving is the Welcome Wagon lady saying howdy. Because most of the time, you see, even a rude Coloradan is more polite than a hardened Californian.