Image Up Advertising & Design

A message from the publisher I woke up early this morning, hoping to beat the sunrise so I could get a good shot for this month's cover. I drove to the trail behind Chapman Heights, waited for the light to be just right and discovered that a watched sun never rises. So I started looking around, taking pictures of our town waking up as the morning light began to spread over the homes. So many homes! I thought about how much Yucaipa has grown in just the last 11 years I've lived here. There were a little more than 40,000 residents in 2000 and the current population is over 50,000. It's amazing that growing by 25 percent so quickly hasn't changed its character. Yucaipa is still a sweet, sleepy little town with one major street, a few restaurants and a slowly growing retail market. When I first moved here, I looked around and thought, "They could build a 2 OUR YUCAIPA | SEPTEMBER 2013 mall there, or there, or there. A parking structure could go there. We could get a Macy's, a Talbot's and maybe an indoor skating rink." As the years have passed, I realize that Yucaipa is an escape from all that noise. It's a place to go when you want to take a walk on a trail before sunrise, where you can enjoy the quiet hills and breathe clean air. There is little traffic noise and, unlike everywhere else in Southern California, people aren't in a hurry to get anywhere. I drove up to a light and in the left lane were five cars, in the right there was one. In Orange County cars would have been jockeying for position as if they were in a race. I wondered why that didn't happen in Yucaipa. Then I realized it's because people here aren't in a hurry to get somewhere. They're already there. Yucaipa is our destination, our safe place from the madding crowd. It's home. Finally, the sun began to rise and I spotted a woman walking down the trail. I asked if I could take her picture and she agreed, saying, "Aren't our trails great?!?" They are, I agreed, and hoped that showcasing them wouldn't inspire another 10,000 to move to the best-kept secret in the IE. But that's probably what the people who have been here for 50 years thought when I got here. Despite losing the orange groves, Yucaipa is still a safe haven nestled in the foothills of one of the most beautiful parts of the country. It can withstand growth because, in the end, people can't change Yucaipa. Yucaipa changes people. It doesn't embrace us, we embrace it and make it Our Yucaipa. (Still, let's try to keep it to ourselves…) Courtney

• Cover