From Pixies 🍊 to Roses 🌹

Happy New Year! The final week of 2024 gave us one more adventure to add to our year of wonderful places.

About 75 miles north of Los Angeles, at the base of the Topa Topa mountains, is the Ojai Valley. The mountains, orchards and ranches invite relaxation and enjoyment. We stayed at the beautiful Ojai Valley Inn which has an impressive history dating back to the early 20th Century. A sweet treat as we entered our room were Pixie oranges. These are a local-grown hybrid of tangerines and mandarin oranges making a sweet seedless small orange.

The Ojai Trail is a nine mile multi-use trail (horse, bike, walk) which is canopied and lovely. From our hotel, it was an easy 10 minute walk to the town of Ojai.

At the edge of town, just off the trail, is Libbey Park. The park has a small amphitheater with a motion sensitive sculpture at its entrance. Yes, I danced under it to make it chime. The park also has great recreation areas, children’s playground and tennis courts.

Ojai downtown is filled with local-only stores (no chain stores), wonderful restaurants and plenty of wine tasting rooms. We visited the amazing outdoor Bart’s Books where there is definitely a book for everyone. We tried Topa Topa toffee and Ojai orange ice cream and after canvassing a few local residents, chose the Ojai Vineyard tasting room for a flight of reds and a rosé too.

The Ojai Museum is small in size yet it has several interesting permanent and special exhibits. There is a local wildlife exhibit as well as the history of the valley dating back to the native Chumash who first settled the area. The temporary exhibits were saw were of maps of the area and a local ceramic artist’s work. This inspired us to take a short art class and create some ink-dyed coasters.

Another special moment in the valley is the pink hour —as the sun dips behind the mountains reflecting the beautiful hue across the valley.

As we left Ojai we passed orchards of Pixie trees and olive orchards knowing we will return again for another relaxing visit.

Zig zagging over the mountains and heading back towards the coast, we arrived in Pasadena with time to explore before the 136th Rose Parade. We chose a cool location on the CalTech campus.

The parade route is five+ miles long and had close to 40 floats all of natural materials (including tons of roses and other flowers and seeds and feathers). We went to one of the decorating sites near the Rose Bowl to watch the final preparations before the judging of the floats. It is a remarkable sight to behold.

Following that experience we headed to the Pasadena City College campus to see Bandfest. More than 20 bands march in the parade. There are three separate shows where the some of the marching bands perform several pieces in a stadium similar to a halftime show. We watched five bands including one from Kyoto, Japan. Tachibana High School Band comprised mostly of young women who dance and jump at an incredible pace while performing on woodwinds, brass and percussion instruments. The theme of the parade this year is ‘The Best Day Ever’. We certainly are setting the bar high!

Not all our activities in Pasadena were parade focused. We also visited the Huntington Library and botanical gardens. This complex covers more than 200 acres and offers several museums and multiple gardens including, of course, a rose garden.

Old town Pasadena has kept the ‘old California’ architecture and filled the spaces with multi national restaurants and loads of familiar stores. We had hot chocolate at Amara, a Venezuelan restaurant, and a snack at The Luggage Room, in a former train station.

The parade begins at 8:00am Pacific time and the crowds are amazing. Even with the purchase of bleacher seats, it is expected that you are in your seat hours before the parade. Our bleacher seats, at the halfway point of the parade were filled with coffee and donut-holding viewers. There were also a lot of people holding street level seats acquired with assertiveness the night before and camped at with bonfires and blankets.

As the song lyrics go…”I love a parade”! Happy New Year 2025