Santa Paula festival

 We spent our Saturday afternoon at the Citrus Classic Balloon Festival in Santa Paula, a little town just our side of Ventura.

The festival sounded fun - dozens of beautiful hot air balloons lit up in the evening, a classic car show, kids' activities, free train rides by the Fillmore train folk, and a vintage tractor display.

Thinking that all those things sounded fun, we paid our admission.

Violet enjoyed the petting area, and Stacey liked the cars, of course. But we couldn't find the tractors (how do you hide those??), the train rides had ended (the shuttle to get in took forever), and most of the little fun things to do cost extra money.

 We did get to see a neat aerobatic display, with two skydivers landing in the field in front of us. But once that had ended, it was 5:30, we were hungry, and the balloons weren't going to be lit for another 2 1/2 hours.

So, as close as we were to Ventura, we had dinner with Bill and Patty and their friends.
Then, it was too late to return to see the balloons, not to mention the crazy busy parking situation once evening came.

Had we know the tractors and trains were a no-go, we would have gone in the evening, seen the cars and stayed for the balloons. Thanks Colleen, for sending me this picture to show what we might have seen had we stayed!