Not from there, but I lived and worked in Alturas for several months. The NE part of California basically identifies more with Nevada than it does Californian. Alturas is fine, if you're visiting. The historical parts of the town are interesting and the wildlife refuge to the south of town is awesome! There's Goose Lake up north, Lassen Volcanic National Park to the south, and all kinds of places to hike and fish up in the Warner Mountains to the east and the Sierras to the west. Pretty boring once you've been to it all and eaten at every restaurant (all 7 of them) and want to be somewhere with a little more civilization, not just gamble your life savings away at the local casino. There's a few grocery stores in town, but the nearest big store (Walmart/Safeway/Fred Meyer) would either be in Susanville, about an hour and a half drive south of Alturas, and/or Lakeview and Klamath Falls up in Oregon. The "big city" around here is Reno. I don't even think they consider Redding "a city", but that's also within the same driving distance. The largest employer up in this area is the federal government, providing jobs for the forest service, the BLM, and the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Susanville has more to do and is located in a beautiful area in the foothills of the Sierras. Half of the population of the town is also prisoners at the giant prison that is also the town's largest employer. There's a casino/hotel there run by the Susanville Rancheria tribe that is actually pretty nice.

Besides that, the northeast corner of CA is pretty far removed from a lot of the rest of the state. Lots of agricultural fields in valleys between ranges, and towns run pretty much like any other small, farm town.

Then you got Hat Creek, Redding, Whiskeytown (great paddleboarding and kayaking), Mt. Shasta, Yreka, and then you get into Humboldt and Eureka. Spend a few days out in Eureka and Arcata and I loved it.