Ojai, California – now included, oops!

Ojai, Ventura County, California, USA.

I thought I had posted this one but seems I didn’t, sorry Ojai! We were there after Santa Cruz and before Rio – the last weekend of February.

Ok, I love Ojai as well. What can I say; Tristan’s family live in some pretty cool places. It is a bit touristy though, in the sense that wealthy hipsters drive up from L.A on the weekends and some shops are too posh for their own good. No one does breakfast like Melbourne though; even here there was no obvious signs of a brunch culture (maybe a good thing).

It’s in the truest type of valley I’ve ever been in. Every where you turn you look up to find yourself encircled by reddy brown mountains contrasted against what for us was a perpetually blue sky. It was unseasonably warm, hooray! Ojai gives you a protected, small town feeling with all the benefits of a larger town.

There’s a good choice of bars; seedy pool hall, live band venue with weathered couches, dark fancy small bar, edge of town former bikie haunt and Ojai Beverage Company, which we at least visited almost every night. To be fair, it is a two minute walk from Tristan’s mum’s house where we were staying. It’s also one of the best stocked bottle shops I’ve seen; we spent a good hour all up just browsing. The staff are friendly, the food is hearty and there’s an ever changing list of micobrewery beers (the 15 beer tasting platter is worth it, despite a couple that resembled yeasty syrup).

The annual Ojai Tennis Tournament wasn’t on, but I enjoyed relaxing on the bleachers surrounding the four outdoor courts in the local park (and a maybe pretending I was in Grease). Lots of people and their dogs use the park, its gazebo and small amphitheatre that hosts school concerts. I always love seeing people use their public spaces (like the good public servant I was).

Apparently there are hot springs but we never found them. The river is pretty enough though, and we had it almost to ourselves. On Sunday’s there’s an artist’s and farmer’s market; the strawberries were huge and the pumpkin pie was yum. I was excited to try it having only seen it in the movies and all; it was ok. I also went to Lulu Bandha’s Yoga which was sunny, laid back and welcoming.

Just out of town, we drove down an orange orchard lined road to Tristan’s very cute primary school and one morning we visited the one in Santa Paula where his mum works. Her grade two class was really sweet and a good insight. With only one or two whities, it reminded me of my primary school in Melbourne’s Springvale South, but instead of the majority having a bunch of different backgrounds these kids seemed mainly Latin American. It’s multiculturalism, kinda.

It had recently been President’s and Valentines Day, so there were signs of that, and I thought the map looked weird; centred as it was of course on America. Tristan and I gave a show and tell about Australia, which we only just kept from being completely hijacked by tales and questions about giant snakes. I managed to talk about Indigenous Australians, our varied landscapes and that we don’t ride kangaroos to school. Other than having a brain fart while explaining time zones and telling them that the sun moves around the earth, I think that I instilled some interest in Australia. Or at least a fear of our animals. Ho hum.

On February 27, via Charlotte, Carolina, we took off for Rio de Janeiro. Carnival here we come!

Santa Cruz & Scotts Valley

I love this area too and it’s not just because I’ve adopted Tristan’s sweet as pie, strong and generally awesome Grandma (whom we stayed with in Scotts Valley). Her house backs onto a redwood forest and to get there you cross a small bridge that her now passed husband had built. I hoped her talk of bobcats behind the house was just to scare me (but I don’t think so). We held a baby salamander though! It was about 3cm long, reddy black and looked weird and vulnerable as it crawled around the forest floor on its own.

For a week, we went for walks, watched the Olympics and hung out in nearby Santa Cruz. It’s a home of surf culture and the only place I can think of where even the locals where t-shirts and hoodies emblazoned with ‘Santa Cruz’. It’s about a seven hour drive south of Arcata and still pretty cold.

The boardwalk may just be where the movie The Lost Boys was filmed. I could imagine a young Keifer Sutherland flying over head and the Corey’s creeping around (in a good way). There’s a strong 50s theme with pastel colours, pin ball machines, a roller coaster and probably fairy floss somewhere.

A sea lion and seal colony live on pylons under the pier. We were lucky to see them swimming out into what we thought was seaweed but turned out to be an abundant hunting ground of fish. They swam off instantly to reveal clear water; a pretty cool sight. We also watched a group of dolphins, all in the space of 15 minutes and right by the pier.

In downtown there’s an abundance of people with dogs, cool food places, stores and about six op shops , mostly still full of awesome finds. Australia seems to have picked its way through all that’s left from before 1980, but Californian’s have a lot left to mine from 1900’s on wards, maybe because of their much larger population.

On Valentine’s Day we saw the midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It amazes me that there always seems to be a steady flow of 16-22 year olds obsessively in love with that movie (I was one of them). The queue ran for two blocks and tickets sold out (being organised adults now, of course we already had tickets, ner ne ner ner). These midnight screenings are known for being a riot, but I’d underestimated the American enthusiasm and felt very Australian casually not shouting every call back. I’m not sure if I was proud or embarrassed. Either way, a fun night!

During the day we picnicked at the Garden of Eden; a little known gorgeous spot by the river in Henry Cowell State Park. You get there by walking along a forest railroad track and going down a narrow path (Lost Boys again…).

We also visited Capitola with Tristan’s dad and Monterey where his friend lives. Both are laid back, cute towns along the sea and have a 30s feel; wooden board walks, niche stores and salt water taffy by the barrel. I can’t not say taffy with a big twang; ‘taaeaafy’ and I rationed my precious bag of it until my efforts backfired in Brasil when they melted into one big (and probably delicious) gloop. I didn’t eat it. For shame.

Next stop, Ojai.

America … well, California.

Flying into San Francisco on Superbowl day, the soundtrack for the seven hour drive north to Arcata was mostly over excited game commentators, charismatic evangelicals or patriotic country music. All equally disarming. We kept up our energy with burgers and large take away percolated coffees with ‘cream’. Yup, we were in America.

Arcata, Humboldt County (hehe, County. Like in the movies!).

I love Arcata. I’m a hippie at heart and Arcata may just be hippie headquarters. Apparently, a bunch of hippies were following a Grateful Dead tour in the 70s and never went home after one of the band members died somewhere nearby. That doesn’t explain all the young hippies though… the force must be strong.

Arriving at night Arcata greets you with giant illuminated peace symbols in house windows. Dream catchers hang from porches and there’s op shops, record stores and organic bakeries. Of course, there’s the obligatory gaggle of dirty hippies singing and playing guitar in the town square. Supermarkets are filled with probiotic, antioxidant blah blah blah drinks and food. It’s all a bit too hipppyish for me but they don’t hurt anyone and I even tried kombucha (not bad as long as you keep reminding yourself it’s meant to be good for you).

The whole place smells faintly of weed, helped along by the skunks. Skunks do smell bad if their spray’s too close, but it’s easy to see why skunk is another word for marijuana in America.

We were there for a week and I’d alread decided which of the many yoga studios, and even what class, I would go to months ago. Om Shala didn’t disappoint. Even the short drive there and back on my own, in the dark, on the ‘wrong’ side of the road didn’t faze me.

Om Shala shares an entrance with HumBrews; a cool bar any night of the week. If I lived here I suspect I’d be using that door a lot. Most bars have pool tables and are down to earth with good microbrewery beers and fried pickles. The old cinema has weekly, not-necessarily-quality-but-that’s-the-fun sci-fi night where entry’s free if you buy food (we saw ‘Eegah!’).

Arcata reminds me of the Dandenong Ranges outside of Melbourne, if you replaced the trees with giant redwood trees and added a butt load of moss. It was pretty cold and rained on a couple of days, which was welcomed as California’s going through a drought.

We took a day trip through the Avenue of Giants, where the redwoods are truly enormous and the forest out of a fairytale. It was pretty quiet and in the down season, but a few places were open to buy touristy wood carvings, be amazed by big foot sculptures and be challenged to find him (or is it her?).

We visited a light house in Trinidad and walked to the beach through sand dunes in Samoa (haha, wishful thinking on the place names). Samoa is an old pulp mill town and we had breakfast at the cookhouse where the lumberjacks and mill workers used to eat.

I found it hillarious; Califorrnian Tristan didn’t get it. The cookhouse is a large dining hall made and full of wood, with red and white checkered table cloths and a weathered, slightly bossy but friendly blonde waitress. They only serve one meal and it’s eggs, sausage, toast, biscuit (like a scone), gravy (delicious peppery white sauce), a pot of coffee and a jug of juice. Yum.

We stayed at Tristan’s brother’s place in a gorgeous little wood tiled cottage in the forest and one night at an airbnb place only because I was allergic to his cat. It was our first of many airbnb stays to come and was great. We stayed in the spare room of a group of uni students. For $45 we got a room, breakfast, use of the house and garden, nice towels and bedding.