Michelle Barwfield says:
September 22, 2010 at 5:31 am

We were at Travis from Jan 2, 2004- April 2009, and we loved our assignment there. Grant it my husband deployed a lot while we were there, however our new base is the same way 6 months gone 6 months home. We lived on base and I really miss the house I had there. The base is beautiful, very well kept up and the housing is through a wonderful privatized company called Balfour Beatty. They take good care of the home and service calls are usually swift and done right the first time. The Company even hosts free activities at Patriot Park. My husband was LRS and the Squadron was very good to us as I was one of many Key Spouses. I loved and miss my job greatly…ladies at the MCSS rock! The Commisary at Travis is very nice and has mostly everything you need. The BX is very nice, but I have a few issues with it. Plenty of places to eat on base. Most wouldn’t think this, but the Bowling Ally has a yummydelish breakfast menu. The CDC’s are very good, my kids went to CDC 1 and loved it, the Youth Center is great, only complaint I have there is that they charge a small fee for the annual Easter Egg Hunt. We loved traveling and exploring while we were there. There are endless things to do while stationed there. Some key things are Six Flags Discovery which has a mix of rides and marine and Animals. This is just a mere 20 minutes away from the base. Roughly an hour n half away is Paramount Crowns with Boomerang Bay, also in San Jose is the Winchester Mystery House. That was so cool to tour…just don’t go during the summer. HOT!!! San Jose also has a phenomenal Children’s Museum.
People in California are pretty rude, that was a unpleasant downfall, but you just make the best of it and just smile at them. I learned in our time there instead of judging, sometimes it takes a person to smile and say something nice and most of the time they will open up.


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Sarah says:
September 15, 2010 at 1:40 pm

Another thing about Travis I forgot to mention: there is a great website for connecting with other spouses @ the base!! I used it to sell a lot of our stuff when we were moving. It’s a Yahoo! group called Travis Helping Hands and you can access it here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/travishelpinghands/


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Sarah says:
August 17, 2010 at 8:38 am

We were stationed at Travis AFB 2008-2009. I have three words about Travis: avoid. if. possible. With the current two-front war, Travis is one of the most-deployed bases in the Air Force. If you land at Travis you can pretty much count on multiple deployments unless you’re in a training program.

Sorry, had to put that out there. That being said, you can’t beat the weather in sunny CA. It’s predictably sunny from April-December, then rainy from Dec-Apr. Two seasons, both of them fairly temperate. If you need more variety, all the ski resorts at Lake Tahoe are a three-hour drive from the base, and the Pacific Coast is an hour drive. As long as you don’t mind driving, you can get around and see a lot of fun stuff while you’re at the base.

Another thing to know about living in norcal is that the people in the town (Fairfield/Vacaville) are extremely unfriendly towards military members. Get used to it because your neighbors will pretty much not speak to you at all if you wind up living off-base (see my entry under “Housing”). Sort of a shock if you’re used to making small talk at the mailbox, etc. It took my neighbors six months to say hello. Californians mind their own business, and let you mind yours. Once you get used to it, you will be the same way! You will be offended at your next base when your neighbors come over to introduce themselves right after you move in! Californians’ overwhelming need for privacy may be due to the high population density or something. I have no idea. All I can say is that it shocked me at first, then I got used to it, then I started being the same way. LOL!




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