Yes, the foothills of Madera County are where Appalachia meets California.
I had visited my husband's congregation a few times before we got married a year and a half ago, but nothing could have prepared me for its reality of existence.
While this area is only 30 miles north of Fresno, the mindset of its population is very much "us against them." The "locals," and I use the term loosely, as so many of the people are transplants, look upon those who live in the Fresno metro area (my husband, their pastor, and I included) as flatlanders and therefore as outsiders. With apologies to Chris Nolan's film Insomnia, "There are two kinds of people in [Coarsegold/Oakhurst, etc]: those who were born here and those who come here to escape something." If they don't work in Fresno, it's like pulling teeth to get someone to go there for any reason.
There is a lot of homeschooling, hunting, libertarianism (which also extends to practices they want/don't want in the church), and personal hygiene seems to be a problem among many. It's a challenge indeed. The media is shunned to a degree - TV, internet - but Rush Limbaugh is an icon here. Oh, remember the guy whose skin turned blue from ingesting too much colloidal silver? Yeah, he's nearby. Welcome to my world.
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