Pacific Coast Highway Was Originally Called the Roosevelt Highway

The 1400 mile stretch of road called the Roosevelt Highway (U.S. 101) in the 1920s was re-named Pacific Coast Highway in 1941.

This postcard, from back in the days when it cost only a penny to mail a postcard (the 1930s) indicates "the varying scenery, such as oil being drilled out of the ocean, makes motoring an interesting pastime in California." It shows an image of the Roosevelt Highway between Ventura and Santa Barbara.

Bob then indicates to his dear friend Jane, "Just dropping a line to say all is well in Calif. There's lots of strange things to see in this state. You should be taking your Sunday rides out here."

Now what does Bob mean by that? Well, never mind. Speaking of Ventura and Santa Barbara beaches, visit THIS LINK for public beaches spanning from the Ventura Harbor through Carpinteria and THIS LINK for Santa Barbara area beaches.

The Calleguas Creek Watershed in Southeastern Ventura County

The Calleguas Creek Watershed covers approximately 343 square miles in southeastern Ventura County. The Watershed includes Conejo Creek, Arroyo Santa Rosa, Arroyo Simi, Arroyo Las Posas, and Calleguas Creek, as well as Revolon Slough and Mugu Lagoon.

Calleguas Creek Watershed Map (from Watersheds Coalition of Ventura County)

The northern boundary is formed by the Santa Susana Mountains, South Mountain, and Oak Ridge Mountains. The southern boundary is distinguished by the Simi Hills and Santa Monica Mountains.

About half the watershed is open space, 25% is agricultural and 25% is urban land use. 

The watershed ultimately drains to the Pacific Ocean through Mugu Lagoon.

Learn more about the Calleguas Creek Watershed at www.ventura.org/wcvc/calleguas.htm.

Here is the Calleguas Creek in Camarillo, along side the Calleguas Creek Bike Path, after some significant rains in January 2017.

Dorothy's Chuck Wagon Cafe Captured in Oil Painting by Local Artist, Linda Dark

2022 Update: Dorothy’s Chuck Wagon Cafe closed in June. The building was sold.

Dorothy's Chuck Wagon Cafe is located in Old Town Camarillo at 2344 Ventura Boulevard, serving home-style breakfast and lunch Monday through Saturday. Their phone number is 805.987.2167.

Linda Dark is an artist has lived in Camarillo since 1978. She enjoys capturing local landmarks in oil on canvas, including her latest work piece above. Check out her work at www.camarillolandmarks.com.

The Chuck Wagon Cafe has been here for quite some time. According to the Pleasant Valley Historical Society, the building was built in 1944 and was owned by Larry Logue, who opened Larry's Malt Shop in 1946. It soon became Carmen's Snack Bar, owned by Ed and Carmen Quinn. Dorothy Johnson took over as new owner in 1983.

OldestRestaurants.com has a compilation of the oldest restaurants that are still in operation at the same location in California. Dorothy's Chuck Wagon Cafe is one of the oldest eateries in Ventura County, following the Golden Chicken Inn in Oxnard (the oldest still standing restaurant in Ventura County; founded in 1929) and Familia Diaz in Santa Paula (1936).

Also on that list as opening in 1946 are Casa Escobar (which closed its Westlake Village location last Fall) and El Tecolote in Camarillo.

A more recent view of Dorothy's Chuck Wagon Cafe.

The IKEA Museum Opened in Älmhult, Sweden in June 2016

Overview IKEA Museum. © Inter IKEA Systems B.V. 2016

As noted at this link, IKEA will be relocating early next month from its existing location in Burbank to a new location nearby that is nearly double the size.

There was a massive outpouring of excitement about this new store on the CVG Facebook Page and several folks hoped that the new store could perhaps travel 35 miles west to Thousand Oaks or Camarillo. IKEA does not share its expansion plans but with only 43 stores in the entire U.S. and the new Burbank store occupying the largest footprint of any U.S. store, I would venture to bet that we will not be seeing an IKEA store in nearby Ventura County for the foreseeable future.

IKEA was founded in Sweden in 1943 by 17 year old Ingvar Kamprad, who named the company after his initials, Elmtaryd (the farm he grew up on) and Agunnaryd (his hometown in southern Sweden). Kamprad turned 90 in 2016.

Now, for IKEA fans planning to be visiting Scandinavia in the future, you'll have to check out the IKEA Museum.

Opened in June 2016 this 75,000 sq ft museum is located in the original building that housed the very first IKEA store in Älmhult, Sweden in 1958. The museum features a main exhibition in three parts, a temporary exhibition, a gift shop and a restaurant.

IKEA Museum tells the story of IKEA and how an entrepreneur from the southern parts of Sweden, the province of Småland, together with his co-workers decided to create “a better everyday life for the many people."

Visitors are invited to explore the driving forces in society that shaped IKEA, the people behind it, the ideas and inspiration for the products – but also what IKEA may be tomorrow.

Learn more about the IKEA Museum at ikeamuseum.com/en.

Mosaic of smaller portraits of IKEA co-workers. © Inter IKEA Systems B.V. 2016

Free Online Tool Makes It Simple to Make Any Page Print Friendly

It was a request from CVG reader Eileen posed that prompted me to find something pretty simply, useful and cool, not to mention free.

Eileen asked how could she save the comprehensive guide to finding family bike paths in and around Ventura County article to a pdf file so that she could print it out and bring it with her.

My first thought of course was, this website is very mobile friendly, so if you have a smartphone, just click the article and you'll have what you need in the palm of your hand. No trees consumed. But, hey, I see the benefits of printing out documents too. Not to mention, as recently as 2015, 32% of adults in the U.S. did not own a smartphone.

Problem is, that print feature does not currently exist on this environmentally conscious website. So what is one to do?

I discovered a simple and very easy solution. Simply click the URL of the page you would like to print to pdf and paste it into to the box at www.printfriendly.com. Within seconds, the article can be printed in a nice format directly to your printer, printed to a pdf file or emailed to someone.

Additionally, you can change the size of the text of the article (although the header text size stays the same) and you can change the size of the images in the article or even remove them.

You can also click any highlighted text links, full sentences or images in the converted article to literally remove it. This could come in handy if something is converted that you don't want in your printable version.

Very impressive and very simple to use. Simple is the key. I like simple and easy. And free. 

2016 Ends With a Beautiful Double Rainbow in the Conejo Valley and Surrounding Areas

As soon as I stepped outside just after 4pm today, I noticed the sun shining amid the clouds and I uttered out loud, "This is rainbow weather!" 

Sure enough, I was right. We drove a block and noticed the beautiful, massive rainbow in Thousand Oaks, but we missed the double rainbow that wowed local residents after an entire day of cloud cover, cold and rain.

Here are some of my favorites from THIS FACEBOOK POST.

Taken from Newbury Park

California Lottery "Lucky Retailers" in Ventura County and Surrounding Areas

The California Lottery was created by ballot measure Proposition 37, approved by 58% of voters on November 6, 1984. Current law (Assembly Bill 142, passed in 2010), limits administrative expenses of the Lottery to 13% of sales, with 87% of sales going back in the form of prized and contributions to education.

Since inception in 1985 through the California Lottery's most currently issued financial report as of June 30, 2015, the Lottery has sold $85.1 billion, contributed close to $29.4 billion to schools, paid $45.9 billion to Lottery winners and another $5.6 million as compensation to retailers.

What happens if you win a big Lottery prize? Your name is public record, as is the name and location of the retailer that sold you the winning ticket, the date you won and of course, the amount. For most Lottery draw games, you have 180 days to claim your prize; however, if you win the Powerball or Mega Millions, you have a year to claim your prize. You will receive your first (or in most cases, only) check with your prize winnings six to eight weeks from claiming your prize.

So how do you win "a big one?" I wish I had the answer. One idea to ponder is to pursue purchasing tickets at retailers that seem to have the winning touch.

The Lottery has a "Lucky Retailers" database that shows, of its 22,000 retail locations, over 4,000 retailers considered "lucky." Lucky is defined as, within the last calendar year, either 1) sold at least one winning ticket of $100,000 or more; 2) paid out an average of 400 or more winning tickets per week or 3) paid out an average of $4,000 or more of winning tickets each week. You can access this searchable list at https://www.calottery.com/Where-To-Play and search for “only Lucky Retailers.”

What most interests me is retailers in Ventura County that meet parameter #1; selling at least one $100,000+ ticket over the previous calendar year. So let's take a look at which local retailers meet that parameter as of late November 2016. It is actually quite a short list!

• Hi-Time Liquor, 140 W. Hillcrest Drive, Thousand Oaks

• 7-Eleven, 609 Rancho Conejo Blvd, Thousand Oaks

• Mobil, 855 N. Wendy Drive, Newbury Park

• 7-Eleven, 1840 Cochran Street, Simi Valley

• Simi Valley Smoke Shop, 2902 Cochran Street, Simi Valley

• 76 Station, 2605 Stearns Street, Simi Valley

• Shell Station, 1604 Ventura Boulevard, Camarillo

• Log Cabin Liquor, 2457 Alameda Avenue, Ventura

• Pat Holden Liquor, 860 South A Street, Oxnard

• Goode's Liquor, 1271 Saviers Road, Oxnard

• 7-Eleven, 2201 E. Gonzales Road, Oxnard

• Superior Grocers, 2401 Saviers Road, Oxnard

That's it! Pretty short list!

Prior to the "Lucky Retailers" program, here are Ventura County area retail locations that sold at least two winning tickets of $1 MILLION or more from 1985 to 2013:

• Allan's Market Wine & Lotto, 2521 N. Ventura Road, Port Hueneme (This is the only retail location in the entire state of California during this time frame that sold SIX winning $1 million or more Lottery tickets!)

• 7-Eleven, 2201 E. Channel Islands Blvd, Oxnard (3 winning tickets)

And there you have it! Learn more about the California Lottery at www.calottery.com.