Labor Day Weekend

We started our Labor Day weekend by heading off to Thousand Oaks.  There were a couple of places I wanted to see and we decided that after we saw those places we would stop by Sean's Aunt and Uncle's home nearby for a quick visit.

We first headed to the Gardens of the World.  I read about this place in my AAA magazine and was curious to check it out.  It is a really small place that showcases gardens from Japan, Italy, France, England and also has a California Mission section.  It's quite a beautiful location with large gates that make you feel that you are entering a movie stars house.  They have an informative self guided tour pamphlet that we picked up at their Resource Center.  We spent about 45 minutes there and were pleasantly surprised by what was there.  Even Sean said he enjoyed himself.  If we lived closer it would be some place that I would visit and bring a lunch.

Pagoda in the Japanese Garden

The pagoda peeking out between the trees

French Garden--apparently they are into fountains and this one is a replica of one found at Versailles

Apparently the French are really into symmetry

Mission Garden

Mission Courtyard

They have all 21 missions painted on the walls.  Makes me want to visit them all.

English Perennial Garden

English Rose Garden-I loved the red of these flowers!

PS I didnt get any photos of the Italian garden because there were people in it at the time and it as extremely small

Afterwards we headed to the Chumash Indian Museum.  Oh boy.  I was a tad bit disappointed.  Its obviously a very small museum run by a small staff.  It is completely catered to school kids.  It's a museum with very little information or interpretation.  For school kids who just want to run around and look at all the artifacts that were on display, it was great.  But for the adult who was wanting any history or substantial information on the tribe, you were left very wanting.  It was very neat looking and well put together--just no information.  About a 10 minute walk through the oak trees is a small replica village.  When we got there, there were several kids from a family playing around in homes.  Again no information but I'm sure they have a great school program where interpreters share information with the kids.

The surrounding hills were very green with oak trees

There's a second museum with native history in it so we'll have to go back and visit to see if we can learn more.  It's pretty sad to have such limited resources of the history of the first peoples who inhabited the area.  After the museum we headed to Sean's family's home where we spent the rest of the evening.

On Monday I decided to do an early morning hike with my friend Diane.  I headed to Elsmere, again, because I just like it so much!  I get a great work out and it has decent scenery for the area.  To my chagrin, I came across another snake.  Unsure if this one was a rattler but it still wasn't fun.

Do you spot it?

I tried to zoom in on my phone but it was having a hard time focusing

Later in the day, Sean and I headed to Fort Tejon.  Oh man, what a bummer!  I have a sneaky suspicions that they have great programming...when they have it.  But it was as deserted as .... well I've never been good at clever metaphors but I'm sure you could think of something.  They had a small Self-Guided pamphlet that told you .... nothing.  The few plaques in front of the buildings told you very little.  We did see a chicken coop with several hens.  That's pretty much the most interesting thing I saw.  Oh, and some person was killed by a bear so they buried him under an oak tree.  That's pretty much it.  I can't tell you anything about the history of the fort or why it's important to California history.  What's really sad is it has a lot of great potential.  That is why I think that they have some programming but only do it at certain times.  It is out in the middle of nowhere so I'm assuming not that many people visit.  I wouldn't say "Don't Go" I just would advise you to call ahead.

I got to use my parasol which was fun!

Pretty barren....

By the way, there was a random plaque in a corner of the parking lot that talked about the camels that the military brought in.  They figured they would be suited for the Southwest desert and be able to carry military equipment.  Somehow they learned that they were not good in that kind of desert and so they got handed off to other groups.  I don't know where they ended up but random California history.