Ventura, CA

It is 7:45 am and we are back on Interstate 10 for a half hour until we exit onto CA-210 W to circumnavigate Los Angeles going through San Bernardino.  The cloudless sky is clear blue.   Traffic is light on this Saturday morning and ice plants cover the side of the road like a deep, green shag rug.  Bougainvillea bushes bloom in brilliant shades of cranberry red among the ice plants complimented by the light pink blooms of Oleander bushes.  Heavy winds overnight continue to blow and steering the coach is again a job for Jim in spite of the coach’s weight at 33,000 pounds!

We reach the LA suburbs and travel north of LA through Glendale crossing Interstate 5 and then head down into the valley toward Ventura along the LA River with its minuscule supply of water flowing along the river’s cement enclosed course through the city.  We cross through Burbank seeing signs for Hollywood and pass the expansive Forrest Lawn Cemetery-the original cemetery for Los Angeles.

We take the North 101 highway through Thousand Oaks still en route to Ventura and we are seeing rolling green hills, golf courses and pass an exit to the “Ronald Regan Library and Air Force One” which would be an interesting detour.  We pass some brown hills that seem devoid of plants and wonder if they have been the victims of fires?  Probably, as soon we see the remains of tree branches left at the base of a few of these hills.  We pass produce fields in the process of being harvested with workers dotting the fields.  Raspberry plants beneath sheltering, white plastic look like miniature hothouses.  A few of the ice plants along this section of the highway appear to be blooming in some spots with yellow daisy-like blossoms.  I venture a guess that we are passing field after field of strawberries as we enter the outskirts of Oxnard (and confirmed when we arrived at our RV park with strawberry fields across the street from us laden with ripe berries.)  By 10:30 we enter Ventura and to our left we get our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean and the beach.

We check into Ventura Beach RV Park where we will spend the week.  The park is indeed a short walk from the beach and will be very convenient to our meeting location about a 20-minute drive away.  We settle in and then take a drive around the town of Ventura before grabbing some London style fish and chips downtown in a fifties style café.  It still seems amazing to actually be in California.  The weather is in the 70’s with a light breeze and sunny skies.  We’ll be finalizing our preparation for Monday’s meeting tomorrow and then go out to dinner tomorrow night with our fellow associates. 

Who could pass up a photo of this vintage 1959 Buick as we head toward Main Street in downtown Ventura?

There is a mission here we hope to tour while staying in town to learn about the priest represented by the statue below.

The restaurant below on Main Street caught our attention with its fifties decor and what turned out to be a great meal.

Snoopy's Corner:

Mom has decided my middle name should be Blackfoot.  Snoopy Blackfoot.  Well, I think it sounds pretty cool.  So there I'll go along with that...

I'm happy we're spending a week here.  After all these miles, it will feel really nice to stay put for a few days and then I get to meet my Aunt and Uncle.  I am really excited about that!  We're going down to San Diego for two weeks to visit them.

Plus we'll be getting ready for work while we are down there too.  We have lots of paperwork to put together so we are all set to actually start on April 1st in our territory.  That's ok because we are all excited to actually get started.  I will be doing long naps this week while Mom and Dad are in meetings.  That way I'll be ready to help them do their paperwork a week from now.  I love sorting papers and chasing balls of wadded up paper!