Ojai, It's Me Again.

Oh Lord, is it warm in this coffee house today. I don't know if they turned up the temperature for all the seniors in here, or if all the menopausal women are causing this sharp spike in degrees fahrenheit. Either way they've forced my hand, and I've had to remove my hoodie. After a few beautiful, sunny days here in Monterey, the cold and fog have returned. I knew it would happen, but it could have waited another day or two. It's not all that bad though, you kind of get used to it after awhile. 

Oh, before I forget, Ojai, is pronounced Oh hi. Kristin and I drove up into the heat of Ojai a few weeks ago and visited Meditation Mount, an ice cream shoppe, a couple thrift stores, and Bart's Books.

Meditation Mount

Here's me on top of Meditation Mount. It's much more impressive of a mount than you can gather from this photo. Beautiful views looking down into the surrounding valleys, but those pictures didn't really turn out all that well, so you're stuck with this photo of me. Suckers! 

Meditation Mount

This is some sort of Chinese inspired structure to walk through on your way to the edge of the mount. Kristin and I both passed through it and neither of us turned Chinese, so don't worry about that happening if you ever get here. Also it took us about a half hour to drive here, and in that time the temperature went up by twenty degrees, which was pretty impressive to me, but apparently, quite common along the California coast. 

Ojai Ice Cream Shoppe

Pretty sure this would have been my all-time favorite store had I lived in Ojai as a child. My sweet tooth isn't quite as greedy for candy as it used to be (mostly due to decay), but I still enjoy some sweet concoctions now and again, and this store delivered the goods. I had a scoop of pistachio ice cream, which was just about the best ice cream I've ever tasted. It really was that good. And quite refreshing on a hot summer day. 

Mean Store Owner

The gall of some people. You open up a store next to an ice cream shoppe, and put a no ice cream decal in your window. Some people just don't understand sweet, creamy deliciousness. Kristin was going to smear the remainder of her mint chocolate chip cone inside the circle, but I talked her out of it at the last minute. She's usually very rational, but not this time. I think the heat and the lack of worthy thrift store purchases had her up to the limit. 

Bart's Books

Bart's Books

Bart's Books

Bart's Books

We pulled up next to this "outside" bookstore, which Kristin had raved about, and I thought to myself, "big deal...so they have books on shelves attached to the outside of the building." Turns out is is kind of a big deal. A large portion of the inside of the store is open air with no roof whatsoever, as you can see by the top picture. Some of the shelves were lined with weather beaten books, that I imagine don't get purchased too often. According to their website, this is the largest independently owned and operated outdoor bookstore in the nation, with almost a million books under the sky. 

There is a significant portion of the structure with a roof overhead, as they have many rare books, that probably shouldn't be left out in the sunshine for too long. I would have stayed here much longer, but Kristin had her books and was quite antsy to get home. Actually, that's not really true, but I could have loitered around for another hour or so looking at books and photographing the store. I did walk out with one book, which I'm currently reading, well not right at this minute, but over the past week, I've started reading it. It's called Last Train To Memphis, by Peter Guralnick. It's a book about Elvis' life in poverty to his rise to fame. Quite a good read so far. I highly recommend you purchase it either at Bart's Books or at The Book Cellar in Lincoln Square. Or you can just borrow it for me, if you so desire. 

Well that's it for Ojai, but here's a bonus fun question for all of you. In writing this blog, I used two specific phrases which are derived from two different heavy metal songs. One if pretty obvious, the other, maybe not so much. If you know the answers, type them in the comments below. First person to answer correctly, gets to borrow my Elvis book first. :) Good luck my friends.