8-10-02

A bit of local Saturday morning trekking...

I decided to take a run out before it got too hot and get a few pics from around the town so you could get a better feel for Camarillo.  Here are a few places I went:

Taken from the east end of town, a view of the mountains behind us.  The neat rows on the hillsides are lemon and avocado orchards.  We get frost only about once every seven years, which is why cold-intolerant trees thrive here.

Looking in the opposite direction, from nearly the same spot.  These are the Santa Monica Mountains which run south from here to Malibu and Los Angeles.  The ocean is beyond them.  The barely visible hill with the white spot on top just to the right of center marks the location of the CSUCI campus.

The local Catholic church in Old Town is stylistically reminiscent of churches in South America.   A local landmark, it's currently undergoing restoration.

Sidewalk in Old Town.  Neglected for many years, the area is being spruced up, attracting new businesses and visitors.

Across the freeway from Old Town is the lower-income part of town. I always find myself reassured by signs of 'real life' (as opposed to the perfectly-manicured plots of the wealthy), shown in such things as laundry hung on fences, and especially by this pink house, whose owners use every available square foot to grow food in the summer.  I love watching the progression of the seasons here.  As you can see, their current corn crop is admirably tall.

Old Town Farmer's Market, which takes place on Saturday mornings.  I hadn't been in ages, but I stopped by today and discovered to my delight that we now have a booth selling really wonderful, authentic tamales, steaming and ready to eat.  I brought some home, along with squash, green beans and corn.

A pale, pink-tinged bouganvillea I've been meaning to stop and take a picture of for a long time.  It's hanging over a tract wall. I had to park half a block away around a corner and walk back to see it.  Most bouganvilleas are bright red or magenta.  These 'petals' are not actually flowers, incidently, but bracts such as poinsettias have.

Taken from a hill on the northern end of town just before I headed for home, this shot looks toward the haze-hidden Santa Monica Mountains and the ocean.  Yet another reminder of what is happening to this town, this cul-de-sac used to be a lemon orchard, but was recently sold and built into eight homes that probably run close to the million-dollar range.  When we first came to Camarillo in 1990, the population was around 30,000.  Now it's over 53,000 and growing fast.  Note: a former resident who saw this page volunteered that when she moved to Camarillo in 1961, the town had just 3,000 residents.