It's Sunday and on Sunday we go to church, even if we are on vacation. We had looked up where the Carpinteria Ward was located and found it wasn't far from our hotel. There are few people in the Carpinteria Ward (branch?) but we swelled their numbers by 5. Brandt and Blythe attended Sunday School with the only four youth in the ward, sons of one family and the total Aaronic Priesthood.
We rushed back to the hotel after church, threw together some sandwiches, and joined everyone else (godless heathens wink) to drive into Camarillo. Mom wanted to show us, particularly the grandchildren who had never been, all her old stomping grounds. We began in downtown Camarillo where Georgianne and Tom did early years of elementary school and where the Wagon Wheel Restaurant and Bar was located. We saw the Catholic Church where Dad went to church before being introduced by Mom to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We drove past the corner where Grandpa Hare's service station was, and up the hill towards Mom's old house.
We stopped at Aunt Grace and Uncle Bill's house. They had a little compound with several small houses surrounding theirs. Nothing looks different. We stopped to see Mom's elementary school and then drove up Catalina Drive to see Mom's house. It looks very different from when she grew up there and the avocado orchards that surrounded it are all gone. But it was there. We drove around the corner to West Loop Drive to see Aunt Beth's house which was through the orchard from Grandma Hare's house. While there are still trees visible, it is nothing like it was then. We went up along North Loop Drive and saw another house Mom had lived in when she was very young. There was a big digger in the front yard and a man standing in a big pile of dirt. When we stopped to look at the house, Mom told him she used to live there. He told us he had just purchased the house recently and was installing a new septic tank.
From Mom's house, we drove up into Camarillo Heights to visit Dad's house. I have almost no recollection of ever going there. I remember there was a step-down living room, but that may be a memory based on stories I have heard about the step-down living room. It did have a rounded driveway across the front of the house, a feature Grandpa Barnes really liked. The landscape was beautiful, another feature important to Grandpa. Mom drove us around the back of the hills Camarillo is built on, through Somis and around to Camarillo High School. It looks like a school for juvenile delinquents, with high, razor wire-topped fencing and a gated entry. The only place we missed, which we didn't even realize until later, was the cemetery. Mom wanted to go and forgot.
It was so terrific to see where Mom grew up and to hear stories of her youth and people and places she loved. I have fond memories of Camarillo, too.
We went back to Carpinteria to take family pictures on the beach. That's got a post all it's own. We went to get Chinese food for dinner, at Cora's suggestion. When asking what we should eat, from the back seat (she was riding with us) she piped up and said, "Let's go get Chinese food!" We all went, except Mikayla's children. Blake volunteered to stay back at the hotel with all the rest of Mikayla's children so she could enjoy a stress-free dinner.
Our time in California is drawing to a close and we are sad sad sad. After dinner, we returned to the hotel to pack. We would love to stay forever, free of responsibility and able to play all day every day. Not realistic, I know. Perhaps just being able to go to the beach twice a year every year. That doesn't seem unreasonable. But perhaps still too much to ask. We have decided that when Mom finishes her mission in late May 2023, we'll meet at Carpinteria again. We can't wait!
Quote from the day:
Kal threw a piece of pizza at Blake. When asked what the heck he was thinking he said, “I wanted to have a food fight.” We're glad we didn't take him to dinner with us.
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