SFTF – Maybe we could stay in California? Part 1: Ojai Okay?

Part one – Ojai Okay?

 The main source of my dissatisfaction with living where we do in Long Beach, California is the close proximity of Los Angeles and all that entails, never-ending urbanisation, high traffic volumes, too many people and no real countryside out of sight and sound of all the aforementioned. There are, however, pluses about life in this state, the weather being the first to come to mind and also the one that is probably foremost in Celine’s mind when we start to discuss our nest-building options. We have other reasons for not wanting to leave here in too much of a hurry, mostly centred around family, some of whom are a delight to be with as they grow up far too fast, others who we just like to be around and one who needs our ongoing support as he fights a vicious tumour. And finally one does kind of get used to the place one has become familiar with over the years.

The question, therefore, is “Can we overcome my dissatisfaction without also losing out on the pluses?” and so last week we decided to look around in our own backyard and drove a hundred miles north of here to Ojai (pronounced OH-hy), a small town on the edge of the Los Padres National Forest. The derivation of the name is variously said to be either from an indigenous word meaning nest,rather appropriate for two people who have spent the last six or seven years searching for a new place to do just that, or it may be from the Chumash word “Awha’y” meaning moonwhich also has good vibes for Celine’s name in Greek is Selene, who was the goddess of the moon. Whichever way you look at it there has to be some reason why this place came up on our radar and sceptic though I am, I’m quite happy to read the runes if what they say suits my way of thinking!

Once we got clear of the oilfields just north of Ventura, the drive along Highway 33 into Ojai Valley gave all the right vibes as we got closer to the mountains, the road changed from a dual carriageway to a single lane, the vista became greener and with less hectic traffic your scribe became calmer. We stopped for gas in Oak View, an appropriate name as we were soon to discover that Ojai Valley is so green because of all the California Oak trees which seem to abound there and soon after, the road turned eastwards as we joined Highway 150 in Mira Monte, where we noticed a large mobile-home park, which turns out to be one of four such estates in that town. There’s no doubt that on initial face value mobile homes provide an economic alternative for those, such as ourselves indeed, who cannot always afford a house in our ideal location, but I also have to wonder if they are such a wise investment when one is living at the mercy of whoever owns the land upon which that home is “parked”. I have to admit my negative feelings arise from tales I heard about such communities back in Britain, where unscrupulous landowners were quite ruthless towards their residents, and as a result many parks became quite unpleasant places to live; I think that perhaps I need to do some further research on that type of home ownership here in California, as I do begin to wonder if it could be a solution to our quandary.

Anyway, just a few miles further and we found ourselves in the middle of Ojai and as is our wont, once again we took ourselves on a little orientation tour around the town. The main street had some handsome older buildings including what we discovered later was the old Post Office Tower, a long arcade reminiscent of some we had enjoyed in Bologna during our recent trip to Italy and across the road a tree-filled public park. Traffic was light, street parking was free for a couple of hours, the views of surrounding mountains were delightful and the general atmosphere was relaxing and stress-free, a definite positive after life in the Los Angeles basin. We turned off north into the main residential neighbourhood and criss-crossed back and forth, past many attractive homes but started to wonder if we may have been a bit out of our financial depth – this was mainly after we picked up a For Sale description sheet outside one very fine old house surrounded by a large garden of mature trees that was well over $1m, somewhat similar to prices in our up-market corner of Long Beach. Nevertheless we were starting to feel pretty good about the place, a sense that was further reinforced as we drove across to the other side of the town, in and around Soule Park, a large green space beside the river good for picnics and walking the dog –  one of which we don’t actually have at the moment – through one or two other smaller neighborhoods and eventually finding ourselves at Persimmon Hill, a very exclusive estate of large elegant homes, prime horse property and beautiful views across Ojai Valley.

Returning to the main street, East Ojai Avenue, we parked in a shady corner of Westridge Midtown Market IGA’s car park to pick up some groceries (and make use of their ‘facilities’) before walking through the town centre, popping into Libbey Park and briefly watching some musicians rehearsing in Libbey Bowl where the Ojai Annual Music Festival was due to open that evening. Apparently there are plenty of things happening in Ojai during the summer including wine and beer festivals and a Lavender Festival which we hope to visit later in the month. Our post-midday tummy rumblings prompted us to drop into the Ojai Café Emporium for – in my case at least – life-saving scones, quiche and coffee none of which were very wonderful although the service was friendly enough. With the “inner man” suitably sated, we set off to find a realtor, finally meeting the very laid back Ron McCrea, the owner of Ojai Valley Real Estate who seemed decidedly underwhelmed by our price range and took great delight in showing us a map of the December 2017 Thomas fire that encircled the town like a giant horse-shoe and resulted in dense smoke covering the town for several days; very encouraging!

Unperturbed we went and looked at four possible* homes for sale (*that is they were within our price range) that we found in one of the local newspapers, all of which further deflated our enthusiasm for the town as a possible future nesting site. Which is a real shame as the town is in a beautiful setting, has a friendly, relaxed ambience – the local shops even seem to recognise the benefits of an afternoon siesta – has lots of chic artsy studios and boutiques reflecting no doubt the prosperity of many of the residents, and even has one – soon to be two if notices are to be believed – charming little theatre, plus the usual necessary, for Celine at least, offerings of yoga and zumba studios, and for me the potential of having a productive little back garden due to the supposedly very fertile soil to be found throughout the valley.

The afternoon was drawing on by the time we had seen as much as we could for the day, and not wishing to face the Los Angeles evening rush-hour traffic, we headed west instead, taking the old 150 road towards Santa Barbara, a lovely drive as the road winds its way around the edge of Lake Casitas, a man-made lake created in 1959, still somewhat lacking its full water complement in spite of recent rains, and around the edge of Los Padres National Forest, a vast untamed area with plenty of hiking trails and, we understand, lots of wildlife. It was nearly dusk as we arrived in downtown Santa Barbara and checked baggageless into the Holiday Inn Express hotel, an older building fairly typical of much of the city’s traditional architecture, before venturing back out to find a healthy supper in The Natural Café, having very little energy left for much else. The next morning we enjoyed strolling up State St before checking out, as unladen as we had arrived, taking to the road again and spending an interesting couple of hours walking around The Old Mission, the only one of the original thirty plus Californian missions built by the Franciscan order that still has an active community of monks living and working there. This was followed by a short detour among the opulent homes in the Eucalyptus Hill neighbourhood, just confirming for ourselves that we certainly could not afford to live in Santa Barabara, before the very agreeable drive along highway 101 taking us back into that great, overly busy, exceedingly overly populated megalopolis that is Los Angeles, and thence slowly home among the throngs of Friday afternoon rush-hour traffic.

Is Ojai okay? Well it is certainly a delightful small country town which ticks a lot of our boxes, but I fear we may be too late to bag ourselves a bargain. So the search continues, perhaps we’ll head south next time, and try our luck a little closer to the Mexican border . . .