[AnthonyMouse]

Northern Nevada isn't sleepy towns, it's nothing. It's the desert. But that's not even the problem if there was a metropolis on the other side of it.

There isn't.

Tokyo is ~300 miles from Osaka. If you go 300 miles from Sacramento, you're not in Osaka, population 2.7 million, you're in Winnemucca, population under 9000. The first meaningful destination on the far side of California is Salt Lake City, population ~200,000, 650 miles away in a different time zone. And that is not a big city, it's just the only thing anywhere near there.

To get to a proper metropolitan area you're going to Denver, more than 1100 miles from where you started. It's too far away.