Hey Joe Offer:

I was recently up in Bakersfield this past February for 5 days.
I think there are some changes going on there for the better.
There are some great restaurants there now. Ate at a wonderful Thai restaurant one evening in the downtown area and one good family restaurant near the GET bus station that serves the best pea soup on ?Thursdays. I'm not even normally a big fan of split pea soup but decided to try it as they were serving it on the day I was there.
Great fish serving too!
Stayed at a hotel near Amtrak that served a large buffet type breakfast in the morning with another great Mexican restaurant next door too.
Stopped in at the Buck Owens museum and that was great too see!!
Took a bus and it went down Merle Haggard Avenue. (Oildale area)

Talked to some very nice people that live there in Bakersfield and didn't smell the oil wells in the areas I was in.
I was up there for 5 days and visited some really nice antiques shops on 18th & 19th Streets off "Q" Street.
One had a lot of military things for sale and many other interesting shops for other antiques. Some good books to be found at them too at reasonable prices.
I was all over Bakersfield in different areas and went by two large colleges there.
Jackson Browne playing at the Fox Theater in downtown Bakersfield this month.