Welcome back to California…

On my drive back from Redmond today, I noticed that at the gas station at 148th and 51st near RedWest, premium gas was $3.89.

I chuckled to myself thinking “Hah… gas prices are almost the same here as it back at home.” When I left on Monday night, the station near my apartment was charging $4.11.

I guess that joke’s on me – when I got home tonight, I found that the price at that station is now $4.22 per gallon. Ouchers!

It’s so surreal visiting Redmond sometimes. In the break rooms I saw flyers for houses for sale for $500,000. I saw an ad for a 2br apartment, across the street from a Microsoft building, where someone (presumably the person who posted it!) took a Sharpie and marked the price down from $1395 to $1350. Down!

Perhaps the biggest difference that I notice though is when I drop by the Bellevue Safeway as I often do to buy some snacks and water: Cookies at the Bellevue Safeway, a core staple of any balanced diet in my opinion, can sometimes be dramatically cheaper. I had heard about this from other sites on the web. From the Safeway website:

Home
Bellevue

That said, for some reason they never seem to have M&M cookies at the Bellevue Safeway. Maybe I just get there too late and they’re all gone.

Regardless, that, for me, is a deal breaker. California it is!