April In Bakersfield.
It's not exactly "April in Paris", but we'll take it.
April is by far the nicest time of the year here. If you're planning a trip to Bako, and I don't know why you would, now would be the time to do it.
April means the cold, clammy winter weather has passed and temperatures are lovely in the 70's and 80's. Everything is in bloom and vibrant with color. And the sky is blue... ish. Not quite really "sky blue", but it's about as close as it's ever going to get here.
You only have a matter of weeks to enjoy it, because as we roll into May the temperatures will start creeping past 100 and stay that way through September. All the greenery will start to wither in the heat and the city will become a ghost town as everyone goes into air conditioned lock-down for five months. And the once almost blue skies will turn the color of a used coffee filter. C'est la vie.
Of course, there's a downside; there always is here.
With the lovely April weather comes... the smell.
I actually had come to believe I had grown so acclimated to living here that I didn't notice the smell anymore. But it turns out the smell has been on winter hiatus. And now that the temperatures are warming up, it's back.
With a vengeance
To get a sense of what it smells like here, take a bag of fertilizer, throw it in your oven and bake at 450 degrees.
For five months.
But other than that, and that's a really big "but", it's really quite pleasant.
