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.

The Pond is Back Near the Rancho Sierra Vista - Satwiwa Parking Area in Newbury Park

After weeks off and on rains in the area, the pond is back next to the main parking area at Rancho Sierra Vista - Satwiwa in Newbury Park, part of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

Having lived in the Conejo Valley for over 20 years, I remember years ago when the pond seemed to fill up most every year and gradually dry up by early summertime. But this hasn't been the case over the last five or six years.

Based on how it looked today, and with another big storm on the way on Sunday, this pond is looking good to go for awhile.

And this means other ponds in the area are filling up, like Twin Ponds in Dos Vientos, as well as the waterfall in the Boney Mountain Wilderness.

The Waterfall in the Boney Mountain Wilderness earlier this week (Photo Credit Vanessa C.)

Rare Images of Ventura County History on Display at CSUCI Beginning January 26th

Ladies in feathered hats boarding the first train from Oxnard to Hueneme; a Model T Ford clattering through a beet field and the opening ceremony for the Conejo Grade are some of the images available in a newly-digitized collection at CSU Channel Islands’ John Spoor Broome Library.

About 40 historic photos of Ventura County from the collection will be on display in the John Spoor Broome Library art gallery beginning Jan. 26 in “Ventura County: Places, Voices and Histories,” a series of photographs, penny post cards, and posters that show Ventura County over the last 100 or so years.

The opening for the exhibit will be Thursday Jan. 26 from 5 to 6:30 p.m. in the gallery at One University Drive in Camarillo.

Professor of Art and Broome Gallery coordinator Irina D. Costache, Ph.D., curated the show, which is organized in collaboration with CSUCI’s Head of Unique Collections Matt Cook and Professor of Chicana/o Studies Jose Alamillo, Ph.D.

The show will be organized into sections that highlight different aspects of Ventura County’s history such as cars and roads, people, places, fields and farms.

Historic “voices” in the show will be in the form of a video of Ventura County’s “braceros,” a term to describe Mexican laborers who worked in the fields on a seasonal basis. 

Cook said it took staff and student volunteers several years to digitize all 1500 images in the collection, much of which was housed at the E.P. Foster Library in Ventura.

Limited parking is available on campus with the purchase of a $6 daily permit; follow signs to the parking permit dispensers. Free parking is available at the Camarillo Metrolink Station/Lewis Road with bus service to and from the campus. Riders should board the CSUCI Vista Bus to the campus; the cash-only fare is $1.25 each way. Buses arrive and depart from the Camarillo Metrolink Station every 30 minutes from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday. For exact times, check the schedule at www.goventura.org.

About California State University Channel Islands
CSU Channel Islands (CSUCI) is the only four-year, public university in Ventura County and is known for its interdisciplinary, multicultural and international perspectives, and its emphasis on experiential and service learning. CSUCI’s strong academic programs focus on business, sciences, liberal studies, teaching credentials, and innovative master’s degrees. Students benefit from individual attention, up-to-date technology, and classroom instruction augmented by outstanding faculty research. CSUCI has been designated by the U.S. Department of Education as a Hispanic-Serving Institution and is committed to serving students of all backgrounds from the region and beyond. Connect with and learn more by visiting CSUCI’s Social Media.

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

Unsubscribing From Email Lists to Help Save Time Over the Long Run

Here we are, nearly halfway into the first month of 2017. Some of us have new year's resolutions, some of us don't. Those of us that do may or may not have made progress towards these resolutions.

Perhaps the best approach to feeling like we are actually accomplishing a new goal in 2017 is to set goals that are achievable. Not a lofty goal that could take months or an entire year, but a goal that can be accomplished fairly quickly and easily with a little bit of focus. A goal that, when achieved, can provide immediate benefits.

For me, that achievable goal is to reduce the size of my email inbox. 

Over the course of the year, I buy stuff online, sign up for services and sometimes sign up for email newsletters. While I try to pay attention to un-check the box asking me to sign up for a newsletter, in my haste I sometimes don't do so.

As a result, the daily email inbox grows and grows and grows. Sometimes to 100, 150 or more emails a day.

My daily routine includes deleting emails, usually by quickly clicking a box next to the email, then clicking the delete button. It doesn't take a lot of time to do, but it is a distraction, especially when it continues to happen all day.

If your email inbox is an annoyance to you, consider doing the following:

1. Instead of deleting unwanted emails daily, consider letting them accumulate in your inbox for a week.
2. Then take an hour of focused time to open up each email and decide if this is an email you want to receive on a regular basis.
3. Click the Unsubscribe button. Sometimes that one click unsubscribes you. Other times it leads you to a page that asks "are you sure?" Of course you're sure! Other pages ask multiple questions; would you like a weekly or monthly digest, would you like to receive these emails but not those, etc. Look, decide and take action!
4. A "digest" option is sometimes offered as a way to receive individual messages consolidated into one email. The Nextdoor neighborhood social network website offers a "Daily Digest" feature as one example that can certainly take a load off your inbox.
5. Do you get reminders from Facebook, like birthday reminders? That's something else you can put an end to if it is causing too much clutter by simply clicking the link at the bottom of the email to opt out.

Don't click links in spam emails!

Now one thing you don't want to do is click a link in an email from an unknown sender, otherwise known as Spam. You may be telling a spammer that yes, this email is active, so send me more spam. You don't want that. Gmail does a good job of identifying spam and placing it in the spam folder but there's also an icon you can click for true spam from unknown senders in your inbox.

Now that you have freed up all that space in your inbox and have created hours and hours of extra time, be sure to sign up for the weekly Conejo Valley Guide Updates Email for highlights of things to do and see in and around Ventura County. You have plenty of room now to enjoy these! :) SIGN UP FOR CVG UPDATES VIA EMAIL

One more aside, there also some free online tools out there that do the unsubscribing on your behalf. While I have not personally used them, they may be of interest: Unroll.me  getunsubscriber.com 

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.