This Spring, after having missed a couple of the past Springs, Wendy and I headed down the coast for another backpacking trip to Sespe Wilderness in the hills above Ojai, California. Ventura County. The wilderness was as beautiful as imagined, even the parts that had been burned to the ground by the Day Fire in 2006. Already new growth had seized the spots of the dead and burnt plants and looked fresh and green. We hiked and hiked across the chaparral that was miraculously in full bloom (and anyone who has ever sought out the desert bloom knows you come across it by pure luck or divine guidance, there's no planning). At every turn there were flowers of many colors, from a myriad of tenuously tiny plants. There were snakes and Arroyo toads, one time there was an owl hooting in the night. And when the sun goes down and the sounds of the raw landscape deepen, with a belly full of rehydrated backpacking food (oh, it does taste good in the backcountry) and a slug of single malt Scotch backpacked in its lightweight flask, Sespe is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life.But what about the food you ask?Well, for us there are two places worth going to in Ojai. Used to be three but they closed the old Oh-Hi Frostie, a burger joint straight out of the Fifties. So sad. There's Gourmet Tamales where you can walk in and get a rather excellent green chile tamale that's bigger than your hand, but for a sit down dinner there's nothing like Boccali's at the east end of town. When you head out at dinner time the sun is going down and the light becomes beautiful and you can suddenly smell the orange orchards that fill the valley, sweet as can be. You order the pizza or the plate of spaghetti with the gigantic meatball and you finish with the strawberry shortcake. The tablecloths are red and white checkers. The wine is a glass of zesty Ojai Red. You don't overanalyze it too much or deconstruct it. It is what it is: a really fine meal. The wait staff is so nice and the customers are all having such a great time. When you leave, the sun has gone down, but there's still light and the air is even sweeter with orange blossom. Right outside of the door there's a stand with avocados, oranges and mandarins. You put money in an old coffee can and drive off taking the side roads back to the hotel, the roads that go through the orange and lemon groves. You breathe deeply of the sweet dusk air thick with citrus. Nothing like it. Ventura County.