After reading a short article in Sunset magazine's March issue about the Ventura River Bike Trail I tore the page out and added it to my "places to go and things to do" pile where it rested until yesterday.
It was a lovely Sunday morning drive up through the valley and the really quaint Santa Paula with its agriculture and roadside produce stands, and on to San Buenvaventura and the sea. We had breakfast at a small downtown diner and visited the Mission before entering the bike trail. Although the trail started off kind of bleak, with the highway to the left and industrial yards to the right, there are interesting art installations along the way. Once we passed through trumpet vine covered fences the highway disappears and the river finally appears and the trail winds along a more quiet and peaceful stretch of land.
There we passed an abandoned oil refinery, crossed over an old wooden bridge and peeked through a vine covered chain link fence at a back lot set of some bygone era street scene. We reached Foster Park where a nice bridge crosses the river and two lions at the gate guard the front.We rested there for a bit and watched the river run before turning into the headwind and biking our way back to where we began.
Flickr set here.
When we left the house this morning at about 9:30 it already felt like it was 90 degrees outside. We stopped at Masa for breakfast and walked on up Douglas to Carrol Avenue in Angelino Heights to be looky-loos for the Trolley Line Open House Tour. The houses, Victorians and Craftsmans, were built from 1886 to 1909. The largest house came in at over 9,000 square feet and the cost of construction...$11,500.
More on Flickr
These are cute but they're eating the leaves of my Tomato plants. I haven't been able to ID them with any online searching. But then I'm no bug expert by any means. I flicked one and it flew off. 
I've been very light handed with the organic bug spray on the vegetable garden, and now I'm paying the price for it. The tomato invaders have arrived. 
As I was watering the tomato plants and getting ready to stake them out some support to hold their heavy boughs, I spotted a plump green caterpillar on the top soil. I checked my one little green tomato and something was poking its little brown caterpillar head (or bottom??) out. 
Dang. I plucked the plump Caterpillar from the ground and then plucked my little tomato from the vine. Looking through the green leaves I found another little green caterpillar, got the spray out and doused the plants but good. Take that tomato invaders.
After reading a short article in Sunset magazine's March issue about the Ventura River Bike Trail I tore the page out and added it to my "places to go and things to do" pile where it rested until yesterday.
