Someone else pointed this out to me: there are no California license plates in the Bakken.
There have been numerous stories of the people, vehicles, and license plates from across the country, and I have spotted "them all" in Wal-Mart parking lot. The joke making the rounds is that there are no more folks in Idaho: they have all moved to North Dakota.
But one state is missing. The state with the second highest unemployment rate, at 12 percent, is right behind Nevada, at 12.1 percent or so.
I have seen one Nevada plate, but no California plates.
I have opined about this before. Things don't add up. If it's really that bad in California, one would expect at least one California plate here in Williston. Back in the 1980's, a large number of California folks migrated to Williston, albeit some of them were considered a bit out of the mainstream. But California plates are noticeably absent -- and again, it was someone else that pointed this out to me. I had not noticed until then.
Polls in California suggest folks out there are unhappy with the national economy and national politics, but polls actually show Californians generally happy with their state of affairs. My hunch is that folks in California have found ways to cope, and ways to survive economically, even while "unemployed."
