KERN COUNTY — TROPICAL ENOUGH

For years, Kern River Surf Co has been accused of exaggerating Bakersfield’s tropical qualities.

The palm trees, the inland surf breaks, the yacht clubs, the tiki resorts, the alligator boards and the legendary warm-water barrels beneath the F Street Bridge—supposedly we made all that up.

But the officials finally slipped.

Just northwest of Bakersfield sits the Semitropic Water Storage District: a real public agency established in 1958, encompassing more than 220,000 acres of Kern County and storing enough water to keep our mostly imaginary coastline properly hydrated.

They could have called it the Dry, Dusty and Unreasonably Hot Water Storage District.

They didn’t.

They called it Semitropic.

That is not our wording. That is the government’s wording.

So let the record show: Kern County may not be fully tropical, but it has been officially recognized as at least tropical-adjacent. Tropical enough for palms. Tropical enough for tiki drinks. Tropical enough for yacht clubs, surf companies and occasional river monsters.

We have never claimed Bakersfield was Hawaii.

We have only maintained that, under the right combination of heat, irrigation water, false memory and municipal paperwork, it is at least halfway there.

Kern River Surf Co.
If we aren’t exactly tropical, we’re officially Semitropic.