A Valley Girl, Totally

The 101 is now a freeway that has taken some of the landscape around it. Once the vast Earl Warren show grounds that stretched from 101 (the original) hundreds of yards back, has been reduced in size. The stables now stand 20 or so feet from the freeway and some of the shops and homes are now a past memory. You are on the freeway that has been carved along the eastern hills and you overlook the old highway and the ocean. You can see the original highway, which now serves as an RV parking lot as well as the main means of accessing the ocean. Where the oil pumps still operate the road returns back down to the original height. Here was some of the most interesting and white knuckle driving around. This original road was built following the coast line, and where the road at times was only a few feet above the water line, I think you can get the picture. During a storm or following some sort of disturbance far out to sea, one would find that the tide would be up on the road, or that huge crashing breakers would break in front, behind or on your vehicle. Many cars were washed out into the surf from this road. Of course there was no place to park, and there was no beach, only a massive pile of rocks and then the highway kept you from the water.

After a short drive you are once again up on the new road and again your view is over the top of most buildings and cars. The old Santa Claus Lane is still there, it now has it’’s own off ramp, where before it was just at a curve in the road and you simply pulled off. You notice something that up til now has not been seen. Here from Santa Barbara down starts some of the best swimming and surfing beaches around. It is not an usual sight to see people exit their cars and immediately start to take off their clothes. Of course they do have their suits on under their clothes, but it does get some double takes from non locals. Far out on the horizon many oil rigs dot the ocean almost obscured by the dense haze that lingers this late in the day. The surfers bob and weave their way through the waves and beach goers are busily looking for that perfect spot.

You zoom by Carpenteria Beach, which was a fantastic place to day or overnight camp, now unless you know it’’s there you miss it all together. Ventura is coming up fast and the turn off for Ojai, a glorious mountain retreat with fabulous ranches and one might add allot of movie stars is on the left. Used to be you went through Ventura turned left around a corner with a large yellow house perched high on the hill and headed east towards L.A.. Now with the new 101 it was hard to tell where the curve was, and the yellow house, well if it was there I certainly did not see it. The freeway system is large and you have off ramps for Oxnard, Port Heueme and Point Mugu. There is a Naval base at Point Mugu, a missle test center, and many a time I hqve watched a vapor trail from the test firings from this base. There is also a weapons range along the coast line, really don’’t want to go past that fence.

Heading east now along this highway, what once was a lovely four lane highway separated by a large median with huge laurel trees, is now an 4-5 lane free for all. When the Camarillo family ceded the land over there was a stipulation that the trees would not be harmed or removed. So we were interested to see just what happened to them. A ways up the road we spotted about 200 feet of these magnificent trees near a shopping mall. Along side was I would think part of the original road, there were scatterings of these trees here and there and I am sure some must have fallen in the name of progress. As far as the eye could see this once fertile valley hosted some of the best crop farms around. Now only a scattering of fields are left and those soon will be gone, since the shops and homes now sit on the very edge of the remaining fields.

You start up the grade that will lead you to Newbury Park and then drop you down into Thousand Oaks and Westlake Village. Thousand Oaks was named for the numerous large and very old trees that dominate the hill sides. Many are declared state treasures, much like the redwoods and cannot be harmed. If you own and want to build you must go around and not disturb them. Westlake is a man made lake in this area of rolling hills and offers high prices homes and condo’’s with lakefront views for the very wealthy. Electric boats are only allowed on the lake , gas motors would pollute the water. We lived off of Westlake Blvd. In the 80's and it was a nice place, quite and peaceful. Now it was hard to tell where the freeway ended and city streets started. Cars everywhere, many more malls and homes all the way up into the hills and valleys as far as the eye could see. An interesting note, when we did live in Westlake they were filming the Dukes of Hazard series. Most of the scenes were shot in a small canyon on the other side of the lake. Huge flatbed semi’s would park down the street each holding 3 or 4 orange clad General Lee cars. Some looked as though they has been dropped from a 5 story building, they were the stunt doubles used during all the jumps during the filming. The others were the pristine cars without a scratch.

Continuing down the Ventura Freeway you soon pass through Agora Hills and Calabasas, once very sleepy little towns they now consume most of the once barren hillsides and you cannot really tell where one starts or stops. Jennifer took her tennis lessons at the Agora Hills tennis club, if it was still there it was well hidden. Soon you come to the Topanga Canyon turn off, this way takes you through the hills and drops you down into Malibu, a locate favorite route to get to the beach fast. Canoga Park is next and Encino, you can get off and follow the Ventura highway though the valley, this was once the main way to get to Los Angeles, long before the freeway system. Here is where the true valley girls reside, Encino is the "place" to live (for sure). Jennifer was born at the Encino Hospital,so that makes her a real valley girl.

Large sky scrapers take up residence where only small stores once rested, gone are all the remembered land marks and in their place we find strip malls, multi story malls, there are no vacant fields left, gone are the horse ranches, orange groves and olive trees. Gone are the homes we lived in, the places we ate in, that’’s why you have memories, so you can keep and cherish those memories of a time past that you held close to your heart. We soon come to Balboa our turn off and start to exit, drivers in L.A. used to be nice, not now! They crowd, and basically cut you off to get where they want to go. They will block inter sections and not care and give you the dirty look if you happen to look in their direction.

Our RV park is located in the middle of the valley, one of two only in this area. This one is located down from Birmingham High School, once a military hospitaal, it was turned into a school in the 50's. It had underground utility tunnels that were blocked off from general use. The wards were turned into classrooms. Many of the original structures still remain. To the right is the Sepulveda Dam basin, many of you have seen this dam on television. The front of the dam (the spillway) face the Ventura and San Diego Freeway exchange, so you always see movie crews set up filming some new picture. With camera angles this modest dam can be made to look almost as big as Hoover Dam. Contrary to most thinking there is no water behind this structure. Originally constructed to contain flood waters during the 50's it now stands mostly as a movie prop. Yes it does contain some water that accumulates during torrential rains. There is a golf course a major road (Burbank) a park and man made lake and beyond this are homes and businessess. So as the water backs up, it actually floods these.

The RV park has to be almost as old as me but is well maintained. The staff works very hard to accommodate their guests and we appreciated their courtesy and attention. I am sure we have probably seen it on TV as well. Some of the residents are long term and others like ourselves only passing through.

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