Yeah. I mean when I first moved here I thought it would be ugly, but it really isn't that bad in the desert. It's dry, and I haven't been sick once since moving here (I think it's so dry that bacteria/viruses have a harder time staying alive long enough to infect people.
But the mountains and whatnot are also quite cool. The drive from here to Bakersfield takes me through the Sierra Nevada and that's always lovely (though you can see the smog from Bakersfield off in the distance [the smoggiest city in the US]):