Road Trip - Ventura

I've always been curious about Ventura with a sort of grandiose perception of Ventura as the ideal surf town. Ever since I read that Coastal Living article about the uber cool architects and lawyers who surfed their Ventura break at sunrise, put in a good days work, then lolled around their fabulous California bungalows at sunset. The perfect little surf town with its eclectic Main Street, surfboard-on-bike-with-dog-in tow-kind-of-town, and quaint little bungalows blocks from the surf. Finally, we ventured up to Ventura (no pun intended!) and were immediately charmed by its hillside Main Street. The retail, although charming from the outside, was little to be desired. There was a strange array of antique stores, junk shops, second-hand apparel shops, and yes, even, a porn/bookstore right next to the cute hippie gift shop. If you're looking for high-end retail you'll be out of luck. But I did come across a few finds - the cool gift shop Ciao Bella, the contemporary boutique Link, the local surf shop Wetsand, and of course, the landmark Patagonia store. I guess I should embrace the eclectic collection of antique shops and Mom and Pop stores, because I'm sure soon enough Main Street will eventually become like Santa Barbara's State Street and become over-run with chain stores and lose its true character. But I did see one too many tattoo parlors, porn shops, and smoke shops (Pipeline Smoke Shop you have to admit is a pretty cool surf-inspired name for a smoke shop!)

There was a definite rough edge to Ventura (lots of bikers and tattoos), but in contrast there was definitely an old-school surf vibe going on. One of the best breaks I've ever seen in Southern California so far (and not even crowded!) was right of the pier with lots of Diamond Head quality long-boarding breaks for miles (room for everyone.) I swear every surfer I saw was literally over 60 and with a huge long-board tucked under their wetsuited arm. I'm talking about some REAL surf dudes, not the hotdoggers you see at Huntington, but old-school surfers who toe the nose with true grace. I even saw a surfing dog toeing the nose - pretty cool and exactly what I would expect from Ventura (see pictured above.) I would love to explore more of Ventura as I'm sure I only saw a tip of the iceberg. But for now at least, I've satisfied my curiosity and idealized perception of Ventura and saw both an edgier dark side to Ventura as well as the cool surf vibe I imagined.