Issue link: https://imageup.uberflip.com/i/728967
I started Our Yucaipa three years ago as sort of a love letter to the town where I have spent the last 14 years. I gathered a great team of writers (Randy Peters, Natalie Palmer, Stacey Parr), photographers (Hilary Peters and all the residents who kindly sent their photos in), delivery people (Stacey and Madison Parr, Ben, Clint and Tim Taylor, Emily and Mark Issak), and a fantastic editor/printer (Jolie Ross of Bold Images). Together, we created a magazine each month that we were proud of and that often covered important topics, and sometimes just fun ones. The reason many of us love Yucaipa so much is that it has a wonderful small town feel while being perfectly located in one of the most exciting places in the world - southern California. Unfortunately, we just couldn't get enough businesses to advertise. I guess that's the trade off, living in a small town. I don't want a lot of big businesses because that means more people are living here and with more people comes more traffic, higher crime rates, and less kindness in general. I lived in south Orange County for almost as long as I've been here and I saw Mission Viejo and Lake Forest become crowded and cold. So, after three years, I decided it was time to pull the plug on the magazine. It was a very hard decision, one I struggled with for about a year, but working as hard as we did, losing money month after month, the math just didn't add up. I tell people that Yucaipa is a vortex with its own unique gravitational pull. When we first moved here, my husband and I saw it as a nice, but temporary, place to raise our son, before eventually moving to be closer to my family in Arizona. Then this crazy thing happened. It happened so slowly, I didn't even realize it until it was too late. I had sprouted roots and they went deep into the soil of the town — starting where we live in Chapman Heights, on the cul-de-sac where our son learned to ride his bike, to the front porch where we watched him play with friends, then most recently learn to drive a car — to the Yucaipa Little Theater where we have performed and made friends we will love our whole lives. When the topic of moving comes up now, I tell my husband it's impossible. I'm in the place where we will welcome our son home from college and are already enjoying the joys of being grandparents, thanks to my husband's son Clint and his wife Sam. (Caleb is the cutest baby in the world, just FYI). The vortex has me. And that makes me very happy. I love that I found my special spot on this big blue ball and that it is Yucaipa. And who knows, someday we may start this magazine up again and find a few more businesses who want to join us. Until then… All my best, Courtney Taylor A message from the publisher