The Conejo Valley Guide "Welcome" blog covers a wide range of topics, local information, highlights of local things to do, compilations and other items. Focus is on information relevant to Ventura County and surrounding areas, including Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village, Newbury Park, Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Malibu, Simi Valley, Camarillo, Moorpark, Somis, Fillmore, Santa Paula, Ojai, Oxnard, Port Hueneme, Santa Barbara and Moorpark.
The Conejo Valley Guide® "Welcome" blog covers a wide range of topics, local information, local things to do, holiday event compilations, announcements and more.
The Ventura Botanical Gardens Demonstration Trail is a nearly 1 mile trail between Ventura City Hall and Grant Park. The trail offers awesome views of Downtown Ventura and the coastline. And this time of year is a great time to go as there are still plenty of beautiful colors on the trail. More on the Gardens at www.venturabotanicalgardens.com.
The seasonal pond next to the parking lot at Rancho Sierra Vista/Satwiwa in Newbury Park is still looking good after several months of solid rainstorms this winter. We discovered there are tadpoles galore in the pond and the kids were just mesmerized by them. In the latter part of this footage, the kids decided to "save the tadpoles" that were stuck in mud pit cut off from the main pond. We also discovered tiny frogs, the same size as the tadpoles.
There must be hundreds of turtles hanging out at the pond area of The Commons at Calabasas, enjoying the spring weather, swimming, sunning and bantering with their koi friends. Quite amusing!
The only other place that comes to mind with this many turtles is Alice Keck Park Memorial Gardens in Santa Barbara.
Let us hope the teenage turtles in this bunch do not become mutant and ninja-like in nature.
All this talk about turtles makes me think about tortoises too, including the 90+ year old Galapagos Tortoise, "Clarence," at America's Teaching Zoo at Moorpark College.
Note: This was posted in March 2017. We stopped by in 2018 and 2019 and there was not an abundance of flowers on the trail these years.
We knew this was coming. A sea of orange and purple wildflowers in La Jolla Canyon at Pt. Mugu State Park in northwest of Malibu. It may take you about a half an hour to get there from Thousand Oaks, but it is well worth stopping by the Ray Miller Trail in La Jolla Canyon to catch a glimpse of these colors. More on the Ray Miller Trail at THIS LINK. Directions from Thousand Oaks at THIS LINK.
We are already seeing these beautiful orange poppies blooming throughout the open space surrounding the Conejo Valley after two months of steady rains. Here is a patch of them in the North Ranch Open Space, west of Lindero Canyon Road up in the hills.
These yellow wildflowers appear off of the Westlake Vista Trail adjacent to the Las Virgenes Reservoir each year in the March time frame.
The river is back again near the Wendy and Potrero trailhead to the Wendy Trail in Rancho Sierra Vista/Satwiwa. It was here a month ago, dried up quickly, and of course now is back. This and other water flows near the Satwiwa Center, "Lake Satwiwa" near the parking lot and more captured here. Best to stay off the trails until they dry up a bit though I did tiptoe down the side of the Wendy Trail to capture the water flow.
More on local hikes and trails around Ventura County at THIS LINK.
Seasonal pond next to main parking lot at Rancho Sierra Vista/Satwiwa. I like to call this "Lake Satwiwa" though there is no official name for it to my knowledge.
Every year, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library hosts a celebration to commemorate the February 6 birthday of our 40th President. The event is free and open to the public.
Today marked the 106th birthday of President Reagan, who passed away in 2004. This was the first celebration that took place without the First Lady, Nancy Reagan, in attendance, who passed away exactly 11 months ago -- March 6, 2016.
The keynote speaker at today's event was former journalist and White House Correspondent Sam Donaldson.
The Reagan Library's Executive Director John Heubusch introduced Donaldson as the perfect person to reflect on Reagan's ability to reach across the aisle and use humor to achieve such remarkable success; "...while looking through President Reagan's speeches, I found over a dozen references to Sam Donaldson as the punchline to a joke."
Donaldson was in great form, today, speaking for over 20 minutes, bringing many fun anecdotes and stories to the appreciative crowd.
"Perhaps the most important of Reagan productions came at Geneva, Switzerland*, on the day when the man who called the Soviet Union an evil empire, met for the first time, a maximum leader for that empire -- Mikhail Gorbachev" Donaldson started. "We'd asked the President back in Washington whether he was nervous about meeting this leader, Gorbachev." "Reagan responded <panned by Donaldson in Reagan voice> 'Oh no, I once co-starred with Errol Flynn'" to the laughter of attendees. It was an entertaining and informative keynote and you can see it in the video below. (Donaldson begins at around 17:30 into the video.)
* The Geneva Summit was held on November 19 and 20, 1985. It was the first meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev to discuss international relations and the arms race.
Conejo Valley Guide covers events, activities and things to do throughout Ventura County and surrounding areas.
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