An ongoing adventure of travel and living while using a wheelchair. Tim has been disabled from birth. Darryl is his father and caregiver who travels with him.
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It’s a bit warm, dusty, and the bees are swarming around the rosemary. A couple of friendly dogs wander around, a weimaraner and one of indeterminate lineage, as Ron Asquith leads a tour into a nearby olive grove.
After turning off of the highway; onto a side road; onto another smaller road; fording a creek in our car; and then up the final dirt road; Letty and I decide to skip the tour and head into the Quonset hut that serves as the Ojai Olive Oil Company’s production facility and tiny tasting room…
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From Los Angeles, Ojai is a 90 minute drive away, tucked about a dozen miles up the hill behind the coastal town of Ventura. If you’d like to skip the drive, AMTRAK can take you from L.A. to Ventura. From the train station, you can catch the SCAT line 16 bus which will take you up to Ojai. A local trolley can get you around town. The entire route is wheelchair accessible.
Our trip was a driving trip. While Tim spends the night with his uncles, Letty and I are having an anniversary getaway.
It’s still early when we arrive, so a side trip to the olive farm at Ojai Olive Oil is in order.
Ron’s wife, Alice, mans the counter inside and chops up bread cubes.
Stabbing a cube with a toothpick, we dip it into the first of the oils. The extra virgin oil tastes a bit grassy…I don’t know if that is how it’s supposed to taste, but not one I particularly enjoy. Better are some other oils down the line that exude a pepperiness, one that is infused with basil, and another tinged with garlic.
Also on sale here are a range of Balsamic vinegars imported from Italy. While most of the tasters in the room are wild for the peach flavored vinegar, I’m partial to just the plain variety.
We pick up a few bottles and pay. Outside, up against the rocky hillside, is a great picnic area. Up above, one might see a giant bird flying in the distance if they’re lucky. Nearby is the habitat of the extremely endangered California Condor, one of the largest birds in the world. Saved from the absolute brink of extinction, they are gradually being re-introduced in the wild here. We’re not lucky today and have no food for a picnic so we make our way back down the hill to Highway 33.
Once back at the road, a quick couple of blocks takes us to Boccali’s, a roadside Italian restaurant just outside of town. There’s a quaint, roadhouse feel to the place with its lively patio, large lawn area (closed today), and small dining room out in the country. At this cash-only restaurant, we just have a salad, some bread, and a glass of beer from their tap.
The pizzas and sandwiches looked delicious, but we’re also saving room for a good dinner later.
After lunch, we figure it’s time to check in now. Our lodging would be at Casa Ojai, just east of downtown. Although the outside looks pretty generic, the room is a bit beyond that with a very comfortable king size bed, a nice sized living area off to the side with love seat and coffee table, flat screen TV, small refrigerator, and a large closet area.
Casa Ojai makes it known that they are the “greenest” hotel in town. That means various things are done to reduce waste and the hotel’s carbon footprint such as using saltwater in pool & spa, putting recycling bins in each room along with the trash cans, using low flow shower heads, low flush toilets, and putting all soaps, shampoos, and lotions into wall-mounted dispensers instead of little, plastic bottles on the counter. Even the coffee mugs are ceramic to eliminate Styrofoam cups.
We’re traveling without Tim so our room is a non-accessible, second floor room with an amazing view to the east. Two barrier-free rooms are available with roll-in showers, one with a king bed and the other with two queen size beds.
After check-in, we go over to the small downtown area to do some shopping. Not a lot of bargains to be had here but Rains, an actual old-town, independent upscale department store, is a great place to browse around. It’s kind of amazing that it still exists in this world of big mergers and disappearing stores.
After parking back at the hotel, we walk a couple of blocks to the Ojai Beverage Company where wine and beer tasting are offered for a nominal fee. The store has a huge selection of wines, beers, and liquor. We get a couple of Belgian-style sour ales and a regular Belgian tripel to take back to the hotel where we enjoy them while swimming a sunning by the pool.
For dinner, we go back into downtown and get a window table at Azu, a Mediterranean-influenced bistro serving tapas and entrees.
Starting off with a great salad and creamy tomato soup, we get three tapas to share…a crawfish dish that was on special that night, lamb kababs, and a chile relleno. I have to note that it was all delicious and the relleno the star of the show. It was not like a Mexican relleno with the thick batter and sauce, but more European in the lightness of taste and the tomato based sauce it was served with. It was incredibly good, different, and the pepper was spicy. The ingredients only served to enhance the natural flavor of the chile.
After a good night’s sleep on the very comfortable bed, we head to the west side of town and have breakfast at Egg’s ‘n Things. This is the Ojai branch of a small, Ventura based chain. After ordering our food, the server pops a couple of crepes on the table.
“This is your complimentary Swedish pancake while you wait for your food,” she says.
It’s perfect with the buttery crepe, sprinkled with powdered sugar and topped with a dollop of jelly. Breakfast arrives and we have a little feast with omelets, pancakes, biscuits, and bacon. Not a bad thing on the table.
After eating, it’s a stop at the local farmer’s market, held each Sunday morning behind Rain’s. We pick up some tangerines and sample some great oranges…this is citrus country and this is the season. We also meet some orchid growers that worked at the same nursery we did many years ago and pick up a plant for my wife’s mom.
We check out, and head home via the back road…a continuation of Highway 33 through Santa Paula and Fillmore. Numerous fruit stands line the road, beckoning us to sample their citrus. We stop at one and buy some of the tastiest navel oranges I’ve had in years.
With that, and a toast with one of our newly purchase oranges, we say goodbye to another quick trip and head back down Interstate 5 into Los Angeles and then home.
Darryl
Copyright 2011 - Darryl Musick All Rights Reserved
I hadn't seen Jim in over 30 years. In the intervening years, he'd done a stint in the Navy, gotten married, had a bout with cancer, and earned a degree. He's also a very good woodworker and I'd contracted him to make a piece for me. Instead of having him ship it to me, I thought it'd be nice to drive up to his town...Oxnard, California...pick it up in person, and spend a little time chatting with my old friend.
Catching up over a late breakfast, or lunch if you're Tim, at a very good Golden Egg restaurant patio overlooking the adjacent boat harbor, we decided that we'd make the most of the rest of our day. Saying our goodbyes to Jim, we head over to nearby Somis. It's a little town just northeast of Camarillo. Last year, we got a tour of the Sriracha sauce factory at Huy Fong Foods in Irwindale, California. That's the end of the line for production of this very popular hot sauce.
The beginning of the line is in Moorpark at Underwood Farms where special jalapenos are grown for the sauce. Here in nearby Somis is another branch of Underwood Farms.
While not the mothership, this smaller farm is still well worth a visit. Out back are pens for chickens, alpacas, and sheep.
A large goat pen allows feeding of the pigmy goats but, unfortunately, no petting. Stairs and elevated walkways let these natural climbers to what they do best. Picnics can be eaten in the area set up in a persimmon and orange grove. In fall, a corn maze and pumpkin patch beckons the small set.
Of course, there's also the farm store with an excellent selection of fresh produce. We buy some incredible strawberries to munch on through the day and head out. Back on the Ventura Freeway, we head through the road's namesake to the north end of town where we turn up highway 33 for the short drive up the mountain to the lovely little town of Ojai. Along the way, we pass through Casitas Springs, which has a sign saying "the home of Johnny Cash." Cash did buy a trailer park here for his parents and built a house up on the hill but this was his dark, drug filled days where he was out on the road 250 days a year. First wife Vivian and daughter Rosanne spent more time here than he did. Ojai is just a right turn away a few minutes later. Sitting at the bottom of the Sespe Range, home of the rejuvenated population of California Condors, Ojai is now a town of tony B and B's, expensive restaurants, and spas.
I remember there is a parking lot one block north of the main drag, behind the shops that line Ojai Avenue in the heart of town, and head back there to find a prime spot in the little plaza hidden back there. Decent, accessible public restrooms are there along with a myriad assortment of shops, restaurants, and one of the last remaining independent department stores, Rains. We stroll through the passageways, Tim and I usually waiting outside while Letty browses the goods within the shops, before ending up at Rains . We're about done here but just have one last thing to do, eat. It's about 4:30 and the restaurant we were originally going to eat at, Azu, doesn't serve dinner until 5:30.
I remembered an Italian place we walked by earlier with a happy hour sign in the window. Going back, we find Osteria Monte Grappa. It's a dollar off beer, two off of wine, and three off of their wood-fired pizzas.
We decide to give it a try.
Turns out that the only food they serve at happy hour is the pizza so Tim and I share their inferno pizza...pepperoni, olives, and a spicey tomato sauce...while Letty enjoys a pizza Margherita.
It is very, very good. Stomach's sated, it's an easy and relaxed drive back down the hill. Shoulda took that left turn at Thousand Oaks, though, because the traffic back in the San Fernando Valley was a nightmare. Lucky, we had some great relaxation to help get us through. Darryl Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick All Rights Reserved
