How big is California?

I've had a couple of people ask about visiting me when they go to "California" unfortunately, this state is on a completely different scale than New England. I'm located on the coast opposite the 'elbow'; 2/3 the way up the state. LA is 1/3 the way up, about a 6 hour drive from San Francisco. San Diego is 3 hours south of that, at the very southern part of the state near the Mexican Border. I superimposed a scale map of California onto the Northeast to give some scale comparison....
I've enjoyed having visitors to the Bay Area, however, just because you're flying into LA, doesn't mean we can get together for lunch. :-)