2024 Thursday — Side Trip

We exited SoCal this morning with the Central Coast on our bulls-eye. We decided to take a side-trip to drive east from Ventura toward Ojai. Once we arrived in Ojai, I was rather disappointed. Nothing there was impressive. I’ve been told since, that unless the community of Ojai is hosting a conference, the place is rather drab, and that’s exactly what I thought it was.

Once we got to Ojai, I was ready to turn the vehicle around and backtrack to Ventura and get back to heading north to the coast. Mr. Fun had other thoughts — he wanted to go up and over the horrific terrain to the valley where my mom & stepdad had moved to way back in the summer of 1966. So that’s what we did. Ugh! It was a rugged road and no less than five places that had washed out during a rainstorm in the past winter storms. So each of those had signal-lights so vehicles could travel the single lane road to get to where they were going. That was very time consuming. We eventually arrived at the valley and drove along it to the community of Ventucopa where Mom & Pop’s had a little beer bar. My stepdad was German and always wanted to have a little tavern. I think within three years or less by autumn of 1968 my parents were separating and ultimately divorced. I think Mom loved running the little bar and cooking burgers for customers. My stepdad was realized quickly that the little bar was a nice place for the locals to quench their thirst, but with a population of almost nothing, they couldn’t make ends meet. So he got a job 40 miles away with the United States Postal System. It wasn’t long and he was wanting to move to that community and quit the commute. Mom was all done with moving; she loved the rural atmosphere. I don’t know many of the details, but the entire thing is just a bad experience or memory or call it what you like. I hated that my mom and my stepdad were divorcing.

Mom stayed in the valley, in Ventucopa, and eventually remarried. In 1983 when Mom was 57 she died of cancer. I was 33. None of those memories are pleasant.

So going there today brings up lots of those feelings. I had no desire to see Ventucopa or the old “Diamond Belle” which has since been rename Sagebrush Annie’s and gone thru a heyday as a wine venue and a weekend dance place, and now it’s a worn out shack of a building. The owner is over 90 and his young wife is in her mid-seventies.

Mr. Fun bought a couple bottles of wine from them. I stayed in the car with the pups. Finally, Mr. Fun returned to where we were parked; we drove toward the area where mom and her next husband, Glen, owned a home. I took a few photos and then we were on our way. We were still driving north on California’s Highway #33 to the #166 where we turned west and headed to the coast to get on the 101 freeway.

What a horrendously long day,
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol
and Chloe & Mitzi too!