Ojai - Ventura Sister Trip and Dad's Memorial Trip

 

    Yesterday, May 21 2022, Lisa and I took a trip in memory of our dad who passed away on July 30, 2013.

    We took this same route in September of 2013 in order for the two of us to do something special to say goodbye to our daddy, that post is here.

    My mom and dad were really big on road trips, just taking off with all of us kids bundled up in the back seat and seeing where the road would take us. I don't believe there was ever a plan, but maybe mom and dad did plan things and just didn't tell us, we just went with the flow because we had utter and complete trust in them and their ability to always make sure we were safe. 

    I want to remember this trip and to post it to my blog in case (God forbid) that I end up with Alzheimer's which does run in our family. Having it here means my kids and my sister will have access to it and maybe they will read me these words and show me these pictures and for a brief moment I will be me again...Alicia, the documenter of her life!

    Unlike my mom and dad, Lisa and I had a plan. We took Highway CA-33 which is a winding road through the Los Padres National Forest that reaches an elevation of  7,510'. When we took the trip shortly after dad passed away, the whole trip was so beautiful because everything was lush and green and flowering. We went again a few years later and everything was dry and brown and it made us sad. I was hoping that this trip would be better and it was! Just take a look at these gorgeous photos.

Los Padres National Forest Highway CA-33

Clouds coming over the mountains

View of the cloud cover and the mountains

My beautiful sister, my partner in crime - Lisa

Obligatory Selfie! As you can tell, it was very windy!

Happy to see flowering plants!

Downtown Ojai - We just came up and over that mountain!

    Once over the mountain we had to make a pit stop as one normally does on a long road trip, we stopped in at a local Vons Grocery Store, did our business and then ogled the aisles of wine they had, quite an expensive selection. Needless to say we did not buy any there, but the day was young!

    There was a cute little liquor store in the same shopping center and Lisa snapped a picture of the name of the store, we thought it was pretty unique! Attitude Adjustment Shoppe. We didn't stop in but plan to do so next time. 

Attitude Adjustment Shoppe 

    Just by luck we happened to find a craft store in the same shopping center. It was just the cutest store and they had so many great things for crafting and art journaling plus they had ready made items you could give or purchase for yourself. I really wanted this beautiful hand  that was carved out of wood and painted red with several Zentangle patterns on it, but it was a bit above my price range for what I wanted to spend for the day. Now I regret not buying it.

    We met a very nice art journaling instructor by the name of Carolynne who was there that day for a 3-series Art Journaling Class held on Saturday. When we told her that unfortunately we were from out of town she offered to do a special class for my sister and I on another Saturday if we wanted to drive back to Ojai. While we were there it sounded doable, however on the drive back we realized that is was a long, long way away to make the trip just to take a 3-hour Art Journaling class, but we would try to find a place in Bakersfield that offers the same thing. Sorry Carolynne, I would have loved to take the class with you, you were so sweet and gracious.

     I did buy quite a few things at this shop, they were very reasonably priced and had some items that I've not been able to find at our craft stores in Bakersfield. I will do a separate post with those items.

    From there we headed to downtown Ojai to do some sightseeing and shopping. Here's some pictures from this location, it was beautiful, cool and overcast with a slight breeze and everyone was so happy and friendly, we had a great time!

Loved this hand-painted tile on the side of a building and had to take a picture with it.

There was just beauty everywhere, Lisa in front of a fountain.

Cute little shop. I want to make a string of beads list this one.

We had to do some Wine Tasting of course. Lisa had the 2021 Syrah Rose and I tried the 2020 Roussanne, both we good, but not good enough to buy a bottle.

It was a lovely place to just sit and unwind and catch up with each other.

My pretty sister and her wine. I know she will hate her hair in the picture, but it was windy!

After our little wine tasting while we were still relaxed we did some walking around and headed into the little shops on the street. 

    Lisa and I pitched in to buy our mom this beautiful hand-crafted necklace. We know she's going to love it just because it's red!

Detail on the hand crocheted flowers with seed beads in the center.

    I'm going to do a separate post also for our time that we spent in Ventura for lunch there, so stay tuned for part two. 

My Sister Says I Have to Start Blogging Again! Trip to Oxnard

Hi All! It's been a while since I popped in to blog about something. I've been wanting to but time just seems to fly by. It's funny that I always thought as I got older I would have more time, but the opposite has happened, I have less time...or maybe it's just that I get tired faster and go to sleep earlier? Regardless...here I am again at the demand (request) of my sister Lisa.

I didn't know it but she was using my blog as her own personal calendar of places we went too, things we did and when we did them. So to humor her, I'm going to try to at least blog about events in our lives.

On February 20th Lisa and I attended another one of her work conferences, this time in beautiful Oxnard. How did such a beautiful city get such a weird name? Well legend has it that the founder, Henry T. Oxnard wanted to name the city Zachari the Greek word for sugar. He was the president of the American Beet Sugar Company and the American Beet Sugar Association, but even way back then bureaucracy reared it's ugly head and he got tired of jumping through hoops and named the city after his family, Oxnard. I think Zachari would have been a beautiful name. 

We stayed at the beautiful Embassy Suites by Hilton Mandalay Bay. This is the view that greeted us as we turned off of Harbor Blvd. Breathtaking! Very California, very Spanish style inspired. 

This time unfortunately we did not have a room that overlooked the ocean like we did last time, but still...this is the view we did have from our room. Can't complain right?

We arrived on Thursday and settled into our room. Then we went down to the lobby for a Vendor Meet and Greet event with a sponsored bar and waiters constantly coming out with trays filled with delicious hors d'oeuvres, my favorite being the juicy ripe melon wrapped with prosciutto and drizzled with a balsamic glaze...mmmmmmm! 

Here's a picture of Lisa that I love! She was given a duck by one of the vendors. 

Me, Lisa and photo-bombed by the duck! It was sunset so the lighting was bad, but we had to take a picture to commemorate the weekend together. 

The next day (Friday) poor Lisa had to be in the dining room early for breakfast with her team as this was a working weekend for her. But I was on vacation, I slept in, got ready, had a leisurely free breakfast and then went to Starbucks to get poor Lisa a "medicine ball" drink as she was dying due to allergies and could not stop coughing and blowing her nose. She was pretty miserable!

Once I had her all medicated and working, I headed to The Painted Cabernet, this fabulous place that Lisa found for me where they have an Open Studio from noon to 4 pm. For $25 they provide all the art supplies and you just go in and paint to your little hearts content!

I was inspired by a painting they had on their wall to paint these cute little cactus plants in Terra Cotta pots. It was such a fun time, so relaxing, the weight of the world just melted away!

It didn't hurt that I sipped on this yummy peach Bellini while I painted!

When Lisa was done with her meetings, we took a walk on the beach and then came back to the room to get ready for the dinner that night. 

The next day (Saturday) Lisa again had meetings and I headed out to do some shopping. I didn't really buy anything, mainly just window shopping, but it was fun and relaxing. I picked up a salad at Rubio's Fresh Grill along with some chips and guacamole so Lisa and I could enjoy that once she got out of her meetings. 

I got back to the hotel in time to take a long walk along the beach with Lisa before she had to head back for her afternoon session of classes and meeting. I headed back to the room and decided I was going to enjoy my salad on the balcony...but I had a friend arrive that unfortunately drove me back to my room. Lesson no. 1, never feed a sea gull.

I'd brought some art books with me and spent a pleasant afternoon just sketching and watching art tutorials on YouTube. That evening they had their award dinner and we enjoyed a nice dinner with a couple of glasses of wine. 

The last day we slept in, took our time getting ready and had a quick complimentary breakfast and headed back home. The drive was uneventful and it was nice to have spent this time with my sister.

There you go Lisa, now you can remember this trip!

The Journey...not the Destination - Part Tres

A continuation of a post about a trip my sister Lisa and I took to Lake Tahoe in October...yes, I know, I'm a slacker, but life keeps going even when I just want to sit and write! This is Part 3 and you can read Part 1 HERE and Part 2 HERE and then you'll be all caught up! Ready to head back to October of 2014? Let's go!

When last we left our intrepid heroines, they were just getting to their hotel in Lake Tahoe after a pleasant dinner and a brisk walk and after a long day of travelling 358 mile from their small hometown to South Lake Tahoe, California. We were bushed! We called it a night early and went to bed.

Now this was not a pleasure trip for my sister, nope...this was work for her. So the next morning she arose bright and early to get ready to meet the rest of her group for breakfast and then meetings and classes all day. I arose a bit later, got ready at a leisurely pace and then went down to meet the wives of all the men in my sisters group for breakfast and then a morning of shopping with the ladies!

This was the first picture I took that day and I love it still! It was breathtaking, and this was just the parking lot!

The ladies and I had a great time shopping. It was nice to just take my time browsing the stores. I bought quite a few things that I didn't need but had to have. The morning went by way too quickly and soon it was time to head back to the hotel to rest and wait for the working part of our group to be done with their meetings so we could go out to dinner.

My sister Lisa had requested that we go to a restaurant there that she loves called Fire and Ice Grill. I had never been there but she had on previous trips.

Fire and Ice is a very unique restaurant in that you line up and grab a bowl and head to their "market". The market has all kinds of raw vegetables, pastas, and legumes. I wish I had thought to take photos of that area but I was busy trying to get the lay of the land, but here's a very similar picture.

Photo Credit - Trip Advisor

Once you've filled your big bowl with veggies, you head on down the line to the proteins section. You can choose from scallops, steak, pork, chicken, sausage, tofu...you name it and they had it. Then you choose a sauce from the myriad of sauces they had such as BBQ, Sweet Chile, Honey Ginger, so many I can't even remember.

I was bit confused and worried about putting raw meats on the vegetables that I was about to eat, but then Lisa guided me to the grill where the magic happened. Just watch this video and see the magic yourself.

It was so fun to watch and it tasted amazing. The only thing is that I put a ton of raw jalapeno on mine and of course when you cook jalapeno it just gets hotter....whoa Nelly that was some spicy stuff! I can't wait to go back again. I had scallops but I wasn't sure how they were going to get cooked and it just seemed wrong to throw a bunch of raw scallops on top of my veggies so I didn't get very many and they were so good that I could have had a whole plate of just scallops!

Here's one last photo of the grill. The cooks were amazing, how they kept track of every one's food just befuddled me! You can see all the different variations of veggies and proteins and that area smelled so good. If you ever have a chance to eat at a Fire and Ice Grill Restaurant I highly recommend it!

Again after that wonderful meal we took a long walk back to the hotel and went to bed. Hopefully I can write and post Part 4 before another couple of months go by.

 

The Journey...Not the Destination - Part Deux

Ok, so for all my faithful readers....all two of you, I present to you Part Two of the most recent adventure my sister and I had. Part one is HERE.

When last we met, I posted a picture and asked you to guess where I was. This is the picture.

Pretty little place isn't it? Lots of pine trees obviously.

Sextant was the only one to play along with my little game and hazard some guesses. His first guess was Yosemite and his next guess was Sequoia National Forest.

Thanks for playing Sextant, and even though you did not guess exactly the place you were close and you win a ribbon just for participating! Here you go!

You really were close and those pine trees were a bit of a give away, but it could be almost anywhere since we headed  North.

But what city/place is this where we were? It was the beautiful city of South Lake Tahoe! It was my first time ever being there. Lisa has gone a couple of times before but she's never really had a chance to see much of it.

As I mentioned, we took the scenic route and once we got closer instead of going into Sacramento, we took the road less traveled. Highway US-50 East. This highway was one that went up, up, up into the mountains. We reached an elevation of 6237 feet above sea level! Now remember, we're Arizona folk, used to seeing miles and miles of desert flat land...this was a whole new experience for me!

Here's some of the shots my co-pilot, my sister Lisa took.

We arrived at our destination and we were already late for a meet and greet that had been scheduled, so we checked into the hotel, dropped our luggage off in the hotel room, quickly freshened up and headed out to meet the others for dinner. We met up with them at a nice little Mexican restaurant called Azul which was about two blocks from the hotel. Azul in Spanish means Blue. Because Lisa and I had eaten such a great lunch in Turlock we decided to keep it light for dinner.

Lisa had a salad which she loved! It was huge too! I can't for the life of me remember what all was in her salad but you can look at the picture and hazard guesses, maybe you can win a ribbon for participation as well! The yellow looks like it could be pineapple, but I believe it was mango.

I chose a Coconut Pork Taco, which was ok, the tortilla was cold and I tasted nothing of coconut in the whole thing. I also ordered a cucumber salad consisting of cucumbers, red onion and jicama in a sweet and spicy dressing, this was very good.

After dinner we walked back slowly to the hotel, stuffed and happy enjoying the cool air. By the time we got there we were all huffing and puffing. Everyone blamed the thin air of the higher elevation, but I think it was really all that food, our age and lack of exercise!

It had been a long day, but it was still only our first day, more adventures awaited the next day, so stay tuned for part three, more beautiful pictures and more food as well!


 

The Journey...not the Destination

Road Trip! Nothing makes me happier than a Road Trip. When we were kids mom and dad used to pack us up in the car on a Sunday and just take off driving. I don't think they had an actual destination in mind, they really were just driving aimlessly on an adventure. I loved those trips, loved being in the car with all the people I loved best; reading, singing, joking, fighting, crying.

It wasn't the destination. It's not like we knew we were on our way to Disneyland and the fun would commence once we got there, we knew that the fun was the journey and the adventure and what we would see and experience along the way.

That feeling of just taking off and driving has stuck with me and recently my sister Lisa and I took a road trip. We did have an actual destination in mind, but the day we left we had no where to be and no set time to be there so we just winged it and took the road less traveled on our little adventure.

We spent the whole time talking and laughing, complaining and whining and yes...even shedding a few tears.

That first day on October 9th we headed North on Highway 99. We could have taken the I-5. The men in our lives told us to take the I-5, but have you ever been on the I-5? BORING!!! There's nothing to see on the I-5! I so much prefer Highway 99 and all the small towns and farms and dairies you see along the way.

We made our first stop in Fresno where we wanted to do some shopping. We found a nice shopping mall and let me tell you we dropped some money there. We both needed some things for the weekend and got lucky in finding most of what we needed. Lisa is  not a big fan of shopping but even she had fun.

Then back on the road again. We were starving by this time but we had a plan on where we wanted to stop for lunch.

There's this fabulous restaurant in Turlock that we used to visit often when my daughter April used to live there. It's a Mexican restaurant called Mi Casa and they serve a really unique dish that we had been craving since we had last been there in January of 2010. I know because I wrote THIS BLOG POST about it.

So we sucked it up and waited until we got there and it was well worth the wait! We ordered a Chicken Molcajete! I'm hoping you will be able to see the video below, it's really small, just 5 seconds. I don't know why I took such a short video but I didn't realize it until it was too late.

A Molcajete is a traditional Mexican Version of a Mortar and Pestle and looks like this before the food is added. It's not normally used as a serving dish but as a tool to grind things such as corn to make corn meal or different spices and nuts.

This particular restaurant heats up the molcajete, not sure how they do it but they heat it until its a big hot rock and then they put the food in it and serve it to you. It's still bubbling and boiling and hissing and steaming when they place it in front of you and the heat radiating from it makes you back up real quick!

Doesn't that look delicious? Lisa and I shared one and it was way more than enough for us. Alongside they serve a big plate with refried beans, Mexican rice, guacamole and Pico de Gallo, you can see that plate in the background on the bottom pictures. Then a basket filled with flour tortillas and we were in Heaven! My mouth is watering right now just typing this!

Because we were on the road I didn't want to order a drink but Lisa had one since she was just the co-pilot and I took a couple of sips. It was some kind of Halloweenish drink supposed to be Vampire Blood or something, I don't remember the name of it, but it was super yummy and we of course had to take pictures in front of the restaurants sign inside.

We took a little tour around the small town of Turlock, it's a beautiful little town and we reminisced about our times there with April and my mom who always went with us because she missed her granddaughter. It was bittersweet and we marveled at how we leave little pieces of our lives in so many out of the way places.

This is it for Part One of the Road Trip and I'll leave you with a picture of where I woke up the next morning to see if you can figure out where we're headed!

 

On The Road Again! Historic Tehachapi! And Brains on the Tunnel!

This week we did Sister Night early, on Tuesday. We had a good reason and we did something a little different.

My sister Lisa happened to have a doctors appointment in Bakersfield. Since she was already in town it made sense to meet up for dinner. I happened to have a rental car courtesy of General Motors since they were fixing some recalls on my car. We figured, we're already both in Bakersfield and we have a rental car, why not head to the beach for dinner?

The reason we didn't go to the beach is that it's a couple hours away, so we thought we would head the opposite way and that's how we ended up in the beautiful historic City of Tehachapi.

I've been through Tehachapi dozens of times as that's the way we usually head when we visit Arizona or on the way to Las Vegas, but I had never actually stopped and visited. Glad that we did because we really had a good time and it's a beautiful little community.

Tehachapi is 35 miles East South East of Bakersfield. The drive up is beautiful. You barely get out of Bakersfield before you start climbing and pretty soon you are surrounded by beautiful rolling hills. The only sad thing was how dried out the hills were. I normally have always headed that way in the spring or autumn and was used to see rolling green hills, so this was quite a change. But even with the hills dry and yellow, it didn't take away from the natural beauty!

Lisa tried to capture some of the beauty as we drove along as you can see in this collage. The photo on the top right shows the rolling hills somewhat but it is hard to capture the depth of the mountains, especially in a moving car.

Lisa also took photos of one of the mountain tunnels which is part of the Historic Tehachapi Loop. Per Wikipedia, The Tehachapi Loop is a 0.73-mile (1.17 km) long 'spiral', or helix, on the Union Pacific Railroad line through Tehachapi Pass, of the Tehachapi Mountains in Kern County, south-central California. The line connects Bakersfield and the San Joaquin Valley to Mojave in the Mojave Desert. Seeing a daily average of almost 40 trains, the line is one of the busiest single-track mainlines in the world.

The reason I put a close up of the tunnel in the picture is because many years ago, when my son Jim was about 5 years old or so, we traveled to Arizona for a funeral. My brother Fred was driving and my son Jim was driving Fred crazy with questions and just generally chatting away without really saying anything. So Fred pointed out the dark spot at the top of the bridge and asked Jim if he knew what that was and why it was there? Jim had no clue. Fred told him that back in the day hobo's and bank robbers would ride on the top of the trains and that sometimes it was nighttime and they didn't realize the tunnel was coming up and the hobo's and bank robbers would clobber their heads on the top of the tunnels and that mark was the dried blood and brains left from their heads busting against the concrete!

I know the story is gory and scary and totally made up, but it got Jim to staring out the window and trying to see the bloody spot on the remaining tunnels. That kept him entertained for a couple of miles. Hey! When you're travelling with a boy as active and curious as my son was, you do what you have to do to keep him entertained!

Lisa and I finally got into Tehachapi and we spent a good half hour just driving around up and down their main street and turning into side streets when we would see something interesting. Tehachapi was about 10 degrees cooler than Bakersfield. It was 81 degrees and there was a nice breeze and the air....Oh my Goodness...the air was so clean and fresh compared to Bakersfield air! We loved it.

Most of the stores on the main street were closed, and we've made plans to return on a Saturday to walk around and take our mom to a cute little Mexican restaurant we went to. But we may just go to another cute little restaurant called The Apple Shed. Tehachapi is known for their Apple Festival and I have always wanted to go.

After a nice dinner we headed home and we felt like we'd had a weekend getaway. Sometimes just a change of scenery helps!

 

Beach Trip to Re-Charge!

Yesterday my sister and I decided since it was going to be over 100 degrees in Shafter that it was probably a good idea to head somewhere way, way cooler!

We gassed up the car and decided to head to the beach!

We weren't sure if we should head south to Santa Barbara or west to Pismo. We figured Santa Barbara was probably going to be pretty crowded, so Pismo it was. Little did we know that this weekend was the huge and very crowded Pismo Car Show. We had decided when we left home to have lunch at this cute little restaurant called Alphy's Broiler.

We'd been there before and had a really yummy Oriental Salad made with assorted cabbages, scallions, carrots, chicken breast, almonds, cilantro, crispy wonton strips and their own sesame ginger dressing. It is out of this world and we were really excited to have it again!

So it was sad to realize that due to all the crowds and the traffic jam on the freeway that we wouldn't be able to even get there unless we were willing to wait in huge lines of cars and even then we were pretty sure that it was going to be standing room only. So we opted to go to another really great place in Pismo, Zorro's Cafe and Cantina.

The cool thing about this restaurant is that you can eat outdoors and pets are allowed. So there is always someone there with a cute dog. I've eaten there before with my daughter and her puppy Chorizo. Here's Chorizo sitting tableside at Zorro's back in October of 2011. We've been coming here ever since. Isn't she adorable!

We were lucky and for once there wasn't a long wait. We got a table on the sidewalk outdoors. The weather was awesome, the sun was shining but there was a refreshing breeze coming off the ocean which was only a couple of blocks away. Unfortunately they didn't have an Oriental Salad, so I decided to have their Sombrero Burger, a half pound Angus beef patty on a sesame seed bun with grilled sliced japapeno, queso fresco cheese and guacamole and their spicy homemade chimi sauce. I asked for a sample of the chimi sauce and didn't care for it at all, so I requested the burger with no bread,  no chimi sauce and a salad instead of fries...very low carb and very delicious!

My sister Lisa had the California Burger, same kind of beef, on bread (and she did eat the bread), avocado, jack cheese and sprouts. She said it was great as well.

Then we headed down the street to the beach where we just sat and talked and read a little bit in our books and walked and took pictures and talked to people. We had a great time and the weather was perfect! This was our view as we sat in this small park.

Across the street from where we were sitting we noticed that there was a house for sale. Now this neighborhood has houses in every nook and cranny. People don't mind living in each other's living rooms in return for living ocean side. Here's the house. We peeked through the windows and it was just a cute little house, but we immediately started dreaming on buying this house and how we would fix it up and have coffee in the cute little breakfast nook in the morning and wine on the lanai at night.

The great thing about this house is the view! This is what we would see while we had our morning coffee and our evening glass of wine! We had a lot of fun just imagining what life would be like, the parties we would have, the people we would invite to visit.

Today my sister looked this house up on zillow.com. We figured it would probably be $1,000,000 or there abouts. If this same house were for sale in Bakersfield you probably wouldn't get more than $50,000, but guess how much this house is because it's ocean front property?

Yep, a cool $1.5 million!!! I guess Lisa and I had better start playing the lottery! But it was still fun to dream and we had a great day. Got a little sunburned, had some great food and got to spend sister time together. Definitely we have to do this more often!