Today was a long day but, at the same time, a mostly pleasurable day. I say mostly because I enjoyed everything about my trip except for the traffic. Everytime I get on the 101 freeway it is packed, and although because of Covid it is less packed than usual, still the slowdowns are very stressful. But the rest was wonderful.
Today I wanted to pull of a quadrifecta, but had to settle for a trifecta. What do I mean? I wanted to go to the westernmost reaches of Los Angeles county, all the way to Ventura county, as a matter of fact, to visit a few gardens (and one museum). I was inspired by a website I found, silenthiker dot com, and he or she wrote about going to four places in one day. They (I am using the plural so as not to have to settle for he or she) went to the Conejo Valley Botanic Garden, to the Garden of the World, to the Thousand Oaks Civic Center and to the Stagecoach Museum in Newberry Park. I was not going to be so ambitious, I would have settled for two or maybe three out of these sites, and in the end, I sort of had to. They did not let me take photos at the Garden of the World, so I have no record of that visit. You will have to trust my word that I was there.
I got up early and it was cloudy and sullen. As sullen a day as you can imagine, and I feared it might last all day. This is not the weather for an outdoor location, especially if you want to take landscape shots. Neither pitiless sunlight nor muggy gloom work well, they are both disasters for outdoor shooting, whatever a naysayer may say. I do not have time nor the knowledge to fiddle with software, not do I have a boatload of warming filters nor other visual aides, so I shoot straight out of the lens, and if the day is cloudy or burning forest in the knight, tiger, tiger, then it doesn't work for me. But I decided to chance it. Google said that it would be clear in Thousand Oaks, and I took a leap of faith.
As I was driving on the 71 freeway it actually started sprinkling. Just a little, not a considerable rain, but enough to warrant turning on the wipers. I was worried about the trip. I left early, at 9:30 a.m., already later than I wanted to leave, say, at 8:00 a.m., but traffic was not bad. It was still a long, long trip, and I arrived in the environs of the first garden at about 11 a.m. I was still muggy, but now the cloud cover was breaking up. Maybe I might get some sunlight after all.
The Garden of the World is not a gigantic garden a la Descanso. It is also in the midst of what I term pure suburbia. It is suburbs where you can't imagine any poor Latinos living, it is just too perfect, like the villages in a Disney display. But I got there, and walked in. Right away, I could see it was perfectly manicured. It was a very artificial sort of garden, once again, like the entrance to Disneyland, but I thought I could take some photos. Turns out, as soon as I pulled out the cellphone to take some videos before taking out my cameras, security pounced on me and told me no cameras. I had to put it away.
It was a shame. There were a few things, well actually, many that I would have liked to photograph. It was too perfect, I grant you that, and I still want something wilder, but it was still attractive. I loved the modest Mission building, a tribute to the Spanish Missions, and also, the Japanese Garden. I also walked around some other small displays. It is not a gigantic garden, you can cover it in less than 30 minutes. Security was watching me at a distance so no use trying to sneak in any photos. I wasn't going to do so. I can wait for a time when, hopefully, the photography policy is relaxed. They did allow photos before Covid, but now, the excuse is, photographers linger and malinger, so no photographs so that people circulate faster. But there were not that many people there, so honestly, it would not have been a problem, no congestion from me, but I will of course respect their rules.
Well, if I started out with a photographic bust, I could still take photos of the Thousand Oaks Civic Center, so I did. Nothing to brag about, and I will upload those photos in another entry. The main thing is that this is, once again, an artificial landscape that is just too cliché.
Next, the Conejo Valley Botanic Garden. I knew that there were views of the heights, so I was prepared to climb up a hill or two. And yes, there was a climb, but it was manageable. I got there to a very, very congested parking space, it turns out there are athletic facilities right next to it so,with a boys baseball game taking place, there was little parking. Luckily I found something and I was off.
There is no admission here and no attendants. There were many twenty and thirty somethings walking mean dogs here. It seems to be a thing, they feel so threatened that they need to walk with a big dog. I stayed out of their way. Also, the regular moms with strollers or bands of kids. I often wonder, if you visited any botanic garden, you would think the United States was having a baby boom instead of a baby bust. But it is just that these locations attract that demographic, the moms with the kids. They are not representative of the entire country.
I started taking photos with my cellphone and my Fuji GW690ii. There was a modest climb but it was not anywhere near Mt. Rubidoux. It was a modest hill, but it gave great views of the surrounding houses. The garden is on a tract of land which is not that big, but there are paths for walking.
Here is the first batch of my cellphone photos. They are not very good, but they capture some of what I saw.
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