Biking the San Buenaventura River Trail

After reading a short article in Sunset magazine's March issue about the Ventura River Bike Trail I tore the page out and added it to my "places to go and things to do" pile where it rested until yesterday.

It was a lovely Sunday morning drive up through the valley and the really quaint Santa Paula with its agriculture and roadside produce stands, and on to San Buenvaventura and the sea. We had breakfast at a small downtown diner and visited the Mission before entering the bike trail. Although the trail started off kind of bleak, with the highway to the left and industrial yards to the right, there are interesting art installations along the way. Once we passed through trumpet vine covered fences the highway disappears and the river finally appears and the trail winds along a more quiet and peaceful stretch of land.

There we passed an abandoned oil refinery, crossed over an old wooden bridge and peeked through a vine covered chain link fence at a back lot set of some bygone era street scene. We reached Foster Park where a nice bridge crosses the river and two lions at the gate guard the front.We rested there for a bit and watched the river run before turning into the headwind and biking our way back to where we began.

Flickr set here.