This image of the Ventura Beaches was taken from the Ventura Pier at night. Coincidentally, this was the brightest moon of the decade. Unfortunately, the bright moon was blocked out by a wildfire. The pier has a long history, dating back to 1872 (photo copyright Jon Haeber).

For Thanksgiving, I migrated south to Ventura to visit family. Along the way I found a mid-20th century Railroad cafe. Upon arriving, I found myself in the midst of the recent wildfires and recounted the experience in an entry. Last night, I descended on the shores of Ventura’s beaches around 11:30 p.m. I remember, particularly, one night with a girl I once was crazy about on the end of the Ventura Pier. When one reminisces, one often has a hankering to make a pilgrimage — so I did just that.

This gorgeous image of the Ventura Pier was taken by mewtate.
I walked out to the end of the pier. The waves were low and the night was nippy. In the distance stood the shadows of the Channel Islands — an occasional squawking gulls in the distance. Out at the end of the pier, more than 1,500 feet from the shore, was a lone, inebriated fisherman who had just caught — and cooked, mind you — a sting ray. He offered up a taste to me and I tried. The texture was rubbery; the taste was like chicken (as everything invariably is). I leaned over the edge of the pier to try my best to remember the moment I had years ago with this girl while staring at the water. The light of the moon was glimmering on the water, but by squinting it almost looked like a massive underwater fireworks show.

I gave the fisherman a passing wave goodbye, thanked him for the sting ray, and marched back over the wooden planks toward my vehicle.

In the early 1900s, the San Buenaventura area was known for oil and oranges. Once host to one of California’s missions, the sleepy beachside city changed when oil was discovered in the mountains and William Mulholland supplied the Valley and its surrounding landscape with ample water for agriculture. If you’d like to get the full scoop on the conspiracy theories about this period in Los Angeles area history, I highly recommend the movie, Chinatown.

Orange crate labels, highly sought-after these days as collectible art, featured a Mediterranean climate, and idyllic surrounding. Much of the art commissioned for these labels was either wholly or, in-part, commissioned by the Southern Pacific Railroad, which wanted to sell its vast land holdings (from earlier government grants). Boosterism ensured that the rail companies got a premium for Ventura-area land.

Thanks to the boosterism of the Southern Pacific Railroad, and the romantic, idyllic marketing efforts of the orange growers, along with the local chambers of commerce, Southern California was about to be the premier ground zero of convergence for adventurous east coasters looking for new opportunity in the West. They arrived to find themselves in a veritable Mediterranean Garden of Eden; Ventura is home to one of the most dependable year-round temperatures — a comfortable 70 degrees fahrenheit, not too humid, not too balmy.

Ventura is also the birthplace of this blog’s editor, so I hold a special affinity for this place. Recently, it’s become a haven for the affluent — home prices reflect those of Santa Barbara and San Francisco, and for good reason. Little is left of Ventura’s sleepy-city heritage. Along Main Street lies the remains of what was once Mission San Buenaventura. Across the street is the county museum; artefacts and antiques sit behind wrought-iron fences and slowly decay in the elements.

Then there is the Wharf. Ventura’s pier is a survivor. It was cut in half in 1914 by the S.S. Coos Bay; in 1926, storms pounded its face and killed the wharf’s bookkeeper, George Proctor; in the mid-30s a fire wreaked havoc on what remained of the pier, which once boasted to be the longest in California (1,958 feet). Of course, for the umpeenth time, Ventura rebuilt their pier. In 1995, another storm pounded the pier, destroying 423 feet. That was the final straw. The city spent $1.5 million to reinforce the wharf with steel pilings, and it stands stalwart today, taking a beating, but always outliving the feet that walk upon its pilings.

16mm film depicting the Ventura Pier.

Further Research

Ventura County Star on the Pier
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2004/sep/10/pier-pleasure/

More on the Wreck of the SS Coos Bay from Google Books
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZCdIyR8wtYYC&pg=PA48&dq=%22ventura+wharf%22&sig=kYR5A1fwIBUa_vhN6gPs7cQxu6c

Railroad Boosterism and Oranges from U.C. Irvine
http://sphere.ci.irvine.ca.us/pdf/Appendix_C_IVGPH_Final3.pdf

More on Oranges, Southern Pacific, and Boosterism
http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=22584

Looking down into the 159-foot high, 40-foot wide Silo #1 of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile base in California. Experiencing this is nothing short of religious (photo copyright Jon Haeber)

Lately, I’ve committed myself to a number of professional projects, and am in the midst of writing a few theses, so please forgive the lack of posts lately. But, I had to pull myself away from prior obligations to bring you breaking news. I recently was one of a privileged few to see the interior of a Titan 1 ICBM complex. We at Bearings have written about these governmental behemoths borne of the Cold War. But it’s worth noting that our previous entry on a Titan 1 ICBM covered the bare bones stats — the fact that they travel at 5-6 times the speed of sound, carried a 4-megaton nuclear payload, and that there were 54 such missile bases dotting the Continental U.S. (I don’t believe there were ever any in Alaska or Hawaii, but please do correct me if I’m wrong).

Missile Silo Junction on Kodak T-Max 4×5 Large Format (photo copyright Jon Haeber)

This time, I’m going to give you the experience. I’m going to tell you what it’s like to be walking in the interior of a Cold War-era, underground complex that includes over a half-mile of underground tunnels and access portals, where tanks of liquid oxygen and RP-1, Diesel, and Water Glycerol were sent through a snake-like web of pipes and apparti, from tunnel to tunnel, silo to silo (there were three for each base).On a previous trip to the Titan silo outside of Denver (this one’s in California), I was with a group. On the first trip in California, I was alone. For the sake of saving my own toosh from being sued from here to Timbuktu, I do not — under any circumstances — recommend going alone. However, if one should find oneself, in their yearning for a moment of solitude, sitting in front of a 150-foot high, 50-foot wide tube constructed to house an intercontinental ballistic missile, one should not underappreciate such a moment, a moment which few people are privileged to have.

Silo Number 1 on Kodak T-Max 4×5 Large Format (photo copyright Jon Haeber)

For those of you who wish to know what such an experience feels like let me describe, in as best a manner as I possibly could using the highly imperfect lexicon of the English language in describing an experience that ostensibly transcends words:

You walk 1,500 feet through a corrugated, quonset-hut-like tube constructed entirely of steel. Asbestos litters the ground, and steel trestles traverse the junctions and blast doors where stainless-steel walkways once resided (but were since removed). Wearing a respirator to protect your precious lungs you soon come to realize that the smell is not a factor in the experience. The few moments you are required to remove the mask due to space constraints or for photographic composition purposes, you recognize a pervasive smell akin to paint thinner, black mold, and feces all at once. Schlitz beer cans (no longer an offering in your local market) litter the sides of the tunnels — eerie reminders that people toured these tunnels over 30 years ago, much in the same manner in which you are today. When you reach the T-junction, you are faced with two choices: Straight ahead, or to the left. The left passage takes you 30 feet to the an opening that looks directly down into the dark abyss of a hardened nuclear missile silo. You peer down — your feet inches away from 16,000 cubic feet of air, enclosed in a cylinder, sealed off from the outside world, dripping water, full of VOCs, alone, quiet. If you are a soul who knows the proper way to appreciate such moments, you know that it would be an advantageous time to remove all extraneous (and foreign) influences on your senses. At such a moment, you decide to switch off your flashlight, sit on the edge of the access tunnel that leads straight into the deadly abyss with no safeguards or caution signs, and take in the moment. Surface sounds seem to seep in from the launch door despite it being closed. You hear what seems to be the echoes of ghosts, but may very well be the reverberation of passing 747s acting much like the skin of a drumhead inside of a drum.

It is a moment that I can’t say I’ve ever had in my life. It is a moment that I will probably never have again. I wondered if this was the same experience that recent recruits had over 40 years ago. What did they feel and think of the world? How did they feel about holding the fate of a Nation in their fingertips? Did they ever consider the possibility of sending the entire city of Moscow into a nuclear winter?

It’s a mere place, but it tells so much…

The Dining Cars Cafe is one of those rare sights along Highway 101 that is both supremely depressing and beautiful in its own right. What has remained serves as a testament to our changing culture. As an optimist I believe that our perceptions of past relics are changing, and our appreciation for these things will exponentially increase in the coming years. eBay thrives largely because of our fascination with less sophisticated, yet highly endearing times.

Through the years, I’ve taken the same road south many times — both day and night, in all inclement weather, while I became an uncle for the first time, and after deciding on Berkeley as a home.

The 101 is not your typical road. It’s a long stretch of lonely yet beautiful pavement that passes through the Camino Real. California Live Oak sweeps by; strip malls juxtaposed with grapevines and gabled barn roofs. Stories of lives and loss paint themselves across the surface of your hermetically sealed windows while you speed by at 70.

Blips of outposts peek through the pastiche of your passenger side window with vague, fleeting images that give you the sense that this highway was originally intended to be traveled at half the legal limit. These highway side constructions are meant to soak into your psyche like a well-engineered bridge, or a meticulously carved statue.

Now the grain silos and fruit stands blur to the side. As you accelerate, the landscape you traverse regresses to the same type that pioneers in Studebakers looked at as a means to an end — a route to a destination.

The radio blares, singing ensues, cars pass on right, coffee in the cupholder — anything to kill the boredom, anything to make you forget that you will spend six hours glued to a seat. It wasn’t always that way, though. Road trips were sojourns. Escapes. Cars looked like rocket ships, with their streamline moderne curves and their googie-style, gas-hungry body. They were escape pods to the moon.

We once pulled off to the side without requiring an on-ramp and off-ramp — such diminutive landmarks of separation, such gatekeepers of interaction with a landscape. Even after overcoming the burden of slowing down your progress, of passing the Hades-like off-ramps, you encounter the buffers: the fast food joints, and the Denny’s, 7/11s, and other such purveyors of trans-fat, carb-loaded body fuels. You shake off the gas nozzle, pull out your credit card, turn the ignition and leave.

Every once in a while, you may be the lucky recipient of a gift. You will see the life that the landscape once had. You will see the places where people let their engines cool down; the historical markers that nobody reads any longer; and the giant plaster-and-chicken-wire monuments of an era when time was not something to pave, or even save. Time was measured, not in how much you were able to shave off, but rather the quality of what you received — hot apple pie a la mode, window wash with a smile, proud brass plaques, and hand-formed putt-putt courses.