We went out to CA for a vacation to see my friend Jen, her family, and my sister and brother-in-law. We also wanted to do nothing but sit on the beach and relax. Karen and Jen know that usually we want to tour around and really see an area and generally exhaust ourselves in our travels. But this time our mantra was “sit on the beach and do nothing”. And we meant it. We wanted no obligations, no schedule, just time to sit and rest and catch up.
Elizabeth was so excited to get to the beach. We tried to stop for lunch on the drive from the airport, but she screamed so loud “Beach, beach, no, go to the beach!” that we had to make it a quick drive-through and eat on the drive to keep her this happy.
We dropped our bags off at our bungalow and grabbed her buckets and shovels and walked to the beach right after our arrival.
The weather did not want to comply. We had fog. All day, every day.
It was magical and mystical at times.
With maybe two short nights when it broke just enough for us to see the coastline…and a hint of the Channel Islands.
Elizabeth didn’t seem to mind that much. She had her sand and her friend Alex to run around with.
There was a wall-size blackboard in the cottage we rented, so that was great for the kids to draw on.
One night Jen, the kids, and us went out to (what else?) a microbrewery. Thank goodness the booth backs were so high, for the sake of our neighbors! ha!
For the first couple of days having fog was fine. Fog brings its own beauty into the landscape. But five days of it was more than we wanted (or could bear). Two days we went inland to escape the gloom and find the warmth and sunshine we craved, and were used to.
If it wasn’t foggy, we might not have made the effort to find this pretty little hike to Rose Valley Waterfall. The drive through Los Padres National Forest made us think of the lush Napali Coast in Hawaii.
The hike was short. One mile round-trip. Elizabeth hiked out and back all by herself, which made it all the more perfect. She loves being in nature and hiking, and especially when the hike is near water.
Rose Valley Waterfall is a multi-streamed fall down a rock face in a pretty grotto. Trees circled around us with large boulders and nooks and crannies in the rock face made it such a pretty spot.
Elizabeth enjoyed “painting” with water on the rocks with a stick she found.
There were a couple of other spots along the creek where you could stop and explore or cool off on a hot summer day.
The drive out of Rose Valley made me think of so many of our RVing days with the open road laid out in front of us.
From one overlook we could see the Channel Islands way out in the distance.
We stopped in the small town of Ojai for lunch afterward. Very pretty with it’s Spanish architecture. The other plus? Glorious sunshine. Heat. Aaaah.
There was a playground and a water fountain the kids could play in. We didn’t see too much else of the town since Elizabeth was so happy in this one park. Karen had just arrived in Ventura and told us it was still fogged in, so she also came out to Ojai (just 15 minutes inland of Ventura).
We went back into town and enjoyed a night out with Jen, Aquiles, and Karen. Jen’s sister, Sandy, and her husband, Mike, volunteered to babysit both kids so we could enjoy an adult-night out. Heavenly.
It was nice to have family and friends around for Elizabeth. I enjoy seeing her interact with other people. Here Karen is reading the book that she gave to Elizabeth – Cat in the Hat on Whales. Karen gave Eliz a stuffed Orca, too, which we name Shambu. It was supposed to be Shamu, but Eliz kept mixing it up with the name of her panda, Bamboo, so Shambu is sticking. She kept mixing up Alex’s name too, calling him “Allison” (the name of one of her best friends). Pretty funny. We tried teaching her to call him Alexander to make it a little easier for her to separate.
One night we all walked down to the playground at Marina Park. We all loved the big see-saw.
A pirate ship with a cool zip-line was fogged in…adding mystery to the ship.
We saw several seals in the Marina which was great to show the kids.
Our last night in Ventura required us to move to a hotel (due to an over-booking at the cottage). Elizabeth loves the old-fashioned phones as much as our cell-phones. She “made” several calls, telling people about her trip. But she really loved actually calling Aunt Karen in her room.
Thanks Jen and Aquiles for having such a wonderful dinner at your house with your family and friends the night before we left! The kids had so much fun playing with Alex’s toys. We had one little accident: 2 monkeys were jumping on the bed, when one fell off and bumped her head. Eliz went home with a red mark on her left cheek that mirrored the healing scar on her right cheek from a previous fall. Toddlerhood.
More pictures of our CA trip on 2013 March WebAlbums.
I almost forgot to tell you. A surprise snowstorm dumped over 8 inches on us the night before we left for our trip. Roads were a mess, accidents caused long back-ups on the highway, and then we made a rookie-mistake trying to take a special HOV lane that unbeknownst to us was an express lane to downtown (away from the airport!). We thought we were going to miss our flight! We made it with about 10 minutes to spare. Too close for comfort when racing a child through the airport.
But look how pretty the night before was:
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