Mission Santa Barbara Mission

Ojai, Ventura County, CA.

    Am beginning this while sitting in my camper at the Wheeler Gorge Campground, a US Forest Service facility on SR33 8.5 miles north of Ojai, an attractive town of slightly more than 8,000 people. There is an Ojai Mission, but since it's occupied by the Chamber of Commerce, one can assume that it's not one of the original 21 missions built in the late 1700s and early 1800s by Fray Junipero Serra and fellow padres.

    Good thing I climbed into my sleeping bag an hour early. What I thought was a little-used rural road, SR33, is apparently used by many to avoid the traffic on I-5. While the traffic was virtually non-existent overnight, that changed just before dawn this morning as traffic picked up. Of course, another explanation might be that there are pockets of private property within the Los Padres Natl Forest and the traffic is commute traffic.
....

    I had intended to skip the Santa Barbara Mission in order to get to the Ojai Library to do some things on-line. But, as you can see from the photos to the right, the Santa Barbara Mission is one of the more beautiful missions -- in large part because of the large lawn and rose garden in front of the mission.

    All of the houses on the other side of the street from which I took these three photos were what I belive is called Mission Revival Architecture -- complete with reddish-orange tile rooves. [Indeed, I thing if someone were to remodel one of those house and replace the tile roof with a tar and gravel roof, he'd be tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail; of course, the equivalent of that treatment is likely provided by Santa Barbara's Planning Commission.]

    I stumbled onto a "Rocks" city park on the road which runs in front of the mission-side of the large lawn; it's along a stream which was likely the source of water for the mission. (Actually, I was just looking for a place to turn around and return to the mission to take some photos.)

For more information as well as additional photos of the Santa Barbara Mission, click here.

W 25 Jan Route: Ojai - Ventura - Simi Valley - ??? Campground