Maps generally depict the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles as hundreds of miles apart, and their residents would have you believe it were thousands, but the facts on the ground establish that the two cities are adjacent. They are nearly standing in the same space.
There is a secret passage that will get you right from one of these sister cities to the other. It is well known, but because of the obvious implications of such proximity, it is rarely acknowledged. It begins at the faucet. One need only squeeze into the tap and swim upstream. Follow the water, and you will find just how far these two cities are apart. Go to San Francisco, and have a drink of water. Follow the drink to its source, and you will find yourself looking down into Los Angeles.
As you follow the water from North to South, you will find yourself swimming from West to East. You will eventually surface at what was once Hetch Hetchy Valley, but you need not stop there. Swim on up to Tuolumne Meadows. You’ll still be in San Francisco. That’s San Francisco water you’re wading in. Continue upstream until you get to the Los Angeles City Limits, also known as Tioga Pass.
The Hetch Hetchy project was billed in part as a fire prevention measure, made in response to the great fire of 1906. In reality, Hetch Hetchy was just another Owens Valley. It wasn’t so much about fire as it was an over-abundance of sunshine. The residents of the Golden State had found their sunshine; it was just a matter of time before someone asked for a drink.
Sunshine is the fire that nurtures the young shoots in Winter, turns the fields to gold in the Spring, and ignites them in the Summer and Fall. The heart of the wildfire is the solar fire. Sooner or later, that fire would lead California to water. That is just the Logos of California.
The presence of the City of Los Angeles just east of San Francisco is no violation of nature. It is, rather, a natural fact. Los Angeles grabbed Owens Valley because Owens Valley provided a cheap and easy source of water. Los Angeles took Owens Valley from the white ranchers of Owens Valley for the same reason the ranchers took her from the Paiutes. That’s just the way Mother Nature operates.