Pascal Paepen is a prominent Belgian economist, teacher, visiting lecturer, journalist, speaker, and entrepreneur. Pascal is highly regarded as an expert in banking, international entrepreneurship, and financial markets.
Currently, he’s traveling in the US while keeping a journal. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that he had visited Tehachapi as well, and we requested permission to share his journal entry from that day.
Tehachapi
Tehachapi? Tehachapi? Who goes to Tehachapi? The border control man frowned. I was already starting to sweat. That is indeed suspicious. The man had just asked how long we would be in Los Angeles. I couldn’t answer that we would only stay for a short while and then travel around a bit.
When applying for our visa, we also had to specify our first hotel. And that was not in Los Angeles. After all, we would immediately drive another hour or two to the Holiday Inn Express in… Tehachapi!
Suspicious
Try explaining that. You know, sir, I bought some stock in a company on the pink sheets that has plans to build in Tehachapi. A nice project of 950 homes. I’m going to go and see my investment there. “There’s a good chance you won’t get there.” What do you mean, sir? “Fires,” he replied. “You didn’t know?” But sir, how can there be fires there? I’ve seen pictures and it’s not exactly a wooded area. “Grass,” he said, “There’s a lot of dry grass and that’s on fire right now.” In the meantime, he took the fingerprints of the five fellow travelers from Belgium. Was that a good sign or not?
Would you like to live there?
He let us through. But before we were allowed to leave, we first had to look at what he had on his smartphone. “Look,” he said, “you see?” A recent article about the fires in Tehachapi. Would you like to live there, I asked him. “There is certainly something to do for a tourist,” was the answer. And that was sincere, not meant cynically. The lack of humor is a prerequisite for being allowed to start at border control. “But to live there yourself? No. There is nothing there. There are no jobs and such.” Still, still, I said, there are supposed to be reasonably large employers in the area. I contradicted him again. Did I want to be put on the first plane to Europe again? “Maybe in Bakersfield,” he said, “not in Tehachapi.” And then he also asked an extra question. “Which company wants to build those houses there?” Greenbriar Sustainable Living, sir, on the pink sheets. And we were gone.
To bed
It was 2:00 a.m. when we went to bed. Tired, because we had been awake for more than 27 hours. But satisfied. After all, we were in Tehachapi. The many dozens of lights of the river Scheldt, pardon, of the windmills on the hills around Tehachapi, welcomed us. And fire? We had not seen that. At 2:05 I was already asleep. Breakfast was only until 10:00, so we set our alarm for 9:00.
Pancakes
At 8:00 I was awake. Slept for six hours straight. No jet lag. We still owe that after our return trip, apparently. My dearest nephew and godchild was also awake and we were the first of our group to have breakfast. Muffins, bagels, Greek and other yoghurts, cheese omelet, fried egg, bacon, fruit juices, coffee, and… a pancake machine. Great!
Hercules Poirot
And then Sunday work. We start our detective investigation at the Tehachapi police station. Do they know about a project to build 950 new homes here? “Yes, but it’s not final yet.” Is there a problem?, we ask. “Yes. Water. But that’s in the entire region, so that’s not new.”
Do you think those homes will ever be built? “Yes,” the officer on duty answers. “There is a great shortage of homes here. There is little for sale and if there is something for rent, it is immediately gone.” A lot of jobs here? “Sure.” A lot of crime? “No, not really.”
That’s positive. We look at the potential gold mine building site, near the high school and the rest of the city. Lennart films the area with his drone. And then we walk to the center of the city. In the Vets Bar, a café that is run by volunteers who support the Veterans – that is veterans, not to be confused with vegetarians – we meet Tom and Steve, John, Dave and Belinda, Rob, and some other locals. We didn’t talk about politics or very little, but we did talk a lot about Tehachapi.
The locals
Guess what? They love Tehachapi. Great neighborhood, “And you know what we’re known for?” No. “For our windmills. We were the very first.” Do they know anything about the project to build a lot more houses here? “Sure. Sage ranch. Yes, Jeff Ciachurski’s project.” Do they know the man?
“Yes. Jeff also ran a nice windmill project here that he sold on. Great businessman.” Jeff or Sven should hear it. We arranged the visit to Tehachapi without telling them. The locals would welcome Sage Ranch.
Rob or drop
Only Rob is quite critical. “You know, we’ve got one big problem. Water.” This is the US, after all. There’s a solution to every problem. You could collect rainwater, right? “Yes, but you also have to be able to store it.” Why wouldn’t that be possible? “Because of the ‘crack’, sir. In 1952 we had a big earthquake here. Since then we’ve had that ‘crack’. We have to pump water here all the time.” Can’t that be solved, Rob? “Do you have the billions to solve the problem?” “No, I don’t.”
So Sage Ranch isn’t coming? “Maybe it will, maybe it won’t.” Voila. That doesn’t tell us anything. Or maybe it does. We’ve learned that the locals aren’t necessarily against Sage Ranch. At least not the people we spoke to. And we’ve also learned that the people of Tehachapi are cool people.
Pascal Paepen from Tehachapi
Next stop: San Francisco
This travelogue is shared with Pascal’s consent and was first published here (in Dutch):
https://spaarvarkens.be/spaarvarken-in-the-usa-dag-2
Greenbriar’s management wishes to highlight the presence of several, large employers around Sage Ranch:
Tehachapi:
- Tehachapi Unified School District, Adventist Health, California Correctional Institution
Bakersfield:
- Baker Hughes, Walmart, Amazon.com
Irvine:
- Hyundai Design and Technical Center
Wheeler Ridge:
- Caterpillar, Ikea
Mojave:
- Mojave Air & Space Port: SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, NASA
- Clearway Energy
Boron:
- Rio Tinto
Edwards Air Force Base:
- Air Force Test Center, U.S. Air Force Materiel Command, U.S. Federal Aviation Administration
- Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin
- JT4, Tetra Tech, Magellan Health, ASRC Federal, DXC, Astrion, Vertex Aerospace, Calspan, ABSI Aerospace and Defense, T47 International, Seraph Defense, Integrits Corporation, INQU LLC, Transpacific Technologies Inc., Axient LLC, Gauss Management Research and Engineering, INYA Inc. …
Lancaster:
- U.S. Air Force
Palmdale: U.S. Air Force Plant 42
- Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman
