Freeway Free in California: Beating the Heat in Ojai
If you want to exercise in Ojai in July you must be an early bird to beat the heat. W and I rose before 7AM and went off to hike the Shelf Trail above the Ojai Valley. The trail is about 3.4 miles out and back with lovely views across the valley of citrus and walnut orchards, and the town of Ojai spread out with its white Post Office bell tower anchoring the landscape. By the time we turned around at about 8AM it was already hot, but we were walking west with the sun at our backs, and we went from one shade patch to the next until we regained our starting post.
After breakfast we headed out to Carol Vesecky’s organic orchard, where she cultivates about 40 different varieties of fruit. These included several varieties of mulberry, oranges, grapefruit, apples, figs, and several exotic south and Central American varieties that I did not recognize, though my companions who had spent time in South America greeted them like old friends. After picking some mulberries (and eating half of what we harvested as it was picked) we headed for the Ojai Harvest, a well-reviewed organic restaurant in the heart of downtown, only to find it closed for the day. Our Plan B was the Hip Vegan restaurant, where we had some rather exotic salads (mine was mixed greens, quinoa, marinated sea vegetables, carrots, avocado, and beets, with carrot-ginger dressing quite excellent). [Note: per the linked news article, the Hip Vegan is in process of relocating to a fancier location – cross your fingers!]
We decided to beat the heat by browsing used book stores, the library , and the Ojai museum. Bart’s Books is an amazing inside-outside rambling place, with bookshelves filled with overflow books facing the street’. If you walk by and see a book you want when they are closed, they have an honor box. But the prices are a bit steep.
Next we parked near the arcade and browsed our way from one air conditioned art gallery or boutique to the next. W is not a shopper, so she made a beeline for the drugstore and sat ona bench writing post cards while we other three did our explorations. We rejoined for a visit to Twice-Sold Tales, another, much less pricey used book store run by the Ojai Library. W excused herself against to write post cards in the library, while we browsed another bagful.
We checked in at the library, an old -style adobe and beam rambling building, then left W there, still writing, and continued to the Ojai Museum, located in a re-purposed church. My cousin, a long-time resident, had never visited before, and found out quite a few things about Ojai that after 27 years of residence she had never learned.
We took my cousin out to dinner later at an excellent Italian restaurant of her choice, Osteria Monte Grappa, in the Arcade. Delicious everything – I had spaghetti squash disguised as pasta with fresh tomatoes, basil arugula, prosciutto, and halibut. By this time the heat had abated, but not so much that we did not enjoy bowls of gelato and sorbet after dinner!
Some might have been daunted at prescribing mission architecture when in fact Ojai had nothing resembling a mission. No problem. Libbey engineered the building of a mission-style Post Office, complete with a four-story bell tower which chimed each quarter hour. The false storefronts were replaced with cream-colored stucco and tile roofs; the wooden sidewalks were replaced with terra-cotta pavers and covered with arched arcades. Abracadabra! – Instant ambience!
What better way to spend a gray and drizzly Sunday in Paris than wandering around the cemetery of Pere-La-Chaise, site of burial of many notable and not-so-notables of recent (since the 1800’s ) French history? The requirement for burial here is that one must have been a French citizen OR have died in France (which is why Jim Morrison and Maria Callas are here.) WB and I spent several contemplative hours in the light rain contemplating the mortality of such immortals as Delacroix, whose masterpiece “The Raft of the Medusa” is harrowingly evoked in bas relief on his tomb.
Then we went to the memorial to the 
Next up to the rooftop terrace to admire the view of everywhere we had been and wave at the folks up on the Eiffel Tower.
We decided to walk back from L’Opera (which was undergoing a revamp of its own behind a Rene Magritte-inspired façade) and stopped at a street-side cafe on Rue Tour Maubourg for wine, tea, and people -watching. We saw Cinderella’s glass coach go by, pulled by a rather ordinary brown horse and with two dotty English tourists inside. Such is life in a tourist city.
On my travels in June I met a modern-day visionary. His name is Zachary Brown, he wears rumpled plaid shirts and jeans and hiking boots, and he is the co-founder, executive director, and so far the sole employee of the 
Then it was down through dappled shade and dappled sun in a woodsy canyon, then down further through more dappled shade and dappled sun as we crossed a series of walnut orchards with beautifully shaped and spaced trees, then down further into the tacky outskirts of Souillac, then down past the cemetery. We got confused, asked a passerby if he knew our hotel, and he pointed to it across the street. Winifred and Dianne had just arrived.
Unfortunately WB has developed some problems with her knee and has not been able to hike for the last couple of days, but she has gotten a free ride in the luggage van and enjoyed some leisure. The other three have enjoyed walking through the countryside on back roads and grassy trails, sampling wild blackberries, feral figs, late-season asparagus sprouts, and sunflower seeds.
By noon we were looking for luncheon options, and happily came upon a small shop in a small village which had, to DM’s delight, cold Coca-Cola available. We purchased a few other snacks and continued until we found a convenient stone to serve as both stools and table. We enjoyed the sun, sipping and munching, then snuck through a gap in the wall for a view of the Chateau de Montfort (privately held, unfortunately) 
Allyson Johnson 