Say hello to Joey

Today is the day we arranged to meet Dave and Claudia to go through everything on the RV (which we named Joey) and make sure we knew how it all worked. We spent another great afternoon with them and they asked us out to dinner that night to a little Mexican restaurant they frequent. The food was wonderful and the company even better!

Joey is a 2002, 32 foot long Fleetwood Bounder. Over the last 20 years Dave and Claudia have travelled widely and created wonderful memories in the Bounder. Hopefully we can continue their legacy and forge our own in the next few years.

One thing I love about staying in an area for a bit longer, is finding the weird and wonderful but always interesting hidden gems we come across when walking around new areas. Since we’ve been in Camarillo (pronounced Camareo) we’ve walked a different direction each morning. We’ve walked into the hills and past very majestic, homes and estates, through the coastal areas and also through Old Town. It’s a region of California that for many tourists, would be on the way to somewhere else. North to the much promoted Santa Barbara or Solvang, for example, which we certainly did, but Camarillo has an interesting history.

Here are some of the things we’ve found interesting:

While the history of the indigenous Chumash peoples of this region can be traced back 1,000 years, its recent history saw a 10,000 acre parcel of land granted in 1837 and then sold to Juan Camarillo. He is remembered as a strong community leader, businessman and philanthropist. His son Adolfo, who succeeded him upon his death in 1880, was only 16 but also followed in his fathers footsteps. He developed the Camarillo White Horse, (all born with pure white coats and pink skin but brown eyes), and that are still bred today, provisioned for an education scholarship which also continues to this day and gave his time to very many non-profit organisations.

This area is also the fruit bowl of the region, containing orange, lemon, walnut and avocado orchards and also growing strawberries and tomatoes. Many suburban houses have fruit trees in their yards and they are all covered in fruit at the moment.

The wild avocadoes I picked, and that we were unsure would ripen, have ripened already. Peter said the one he had with his his lunch today was very tasty.

Sometimes, walking around the suburbs you just see fascinating and quirky things.

These carved stone plinths were quite exquisite and as tall as the roof of the house.

These tiny houses and lighthouses were arranged in a front garden. They filled the whole yard and were incredibly intricately painted.

Under the “only in America file” these cars, which are road legal here would give monster trucks a run for their money!

A bronze statue of the actor Joel McCrae (1905-1990) inviting you to come sit with him a while. Who is he you ask? (I didn’t know either) IMBD tells me he was a very popular leading actor in American westerns and an accomplished horse rider. He bought large tracts of farmland in Camarillo and became one of the cities most generous benefactors.

We’ve really enjoyed our time in this little corner of California. We’ve driven to the coast and hiked through the hills; each night we’ve parked in the Walmart supermarket carpark so it’s been a short walk to get groceries, the Home Depot (think Bunnings) is right next door, and only a short walk. There’s Target, TK Max, Ross (just like TK Max) and Michael’s which is a huge craft store. Did I mention the Outlet stores? We spent quite a few hours visiting them too and bought a few things!

Finally Friday arrived, the day we needed to take our hired RV back. We left early in the morning to miss the traffic and drove the 70 miles in around 2 hours. Then we had the trip back. A walk to the bus stop, via Starbucks for a coffee. (I’m not a fan)! After the bus ride we walked to the station and caught a train.

Apparently it was the B Line. Then we caught another bus to LAX and walked to the terminal to catch our final bus back to Old Town Camarillo. The last bus took over 1 1/2 hrs because of the traffic but we finally arrived at 4.30pm! Then it was just a short 40 minute walk back to our new RV, parked in the Walmart carpark. What a day!

Saturday morning we met with Dave and Claudia again and as happens with friends, (which I hope we can call them) we spent several hours chatting. Finally, after almost 2 weeks, we were ready to leave Camarillo and explore some more of America.