The Ojai Valley may look familiar if you’ve ever seen an old California citrus crate label. Groves hung with bright oranges spread out below chaparral-covered mountains and startlingly blue sky—a scene that appears to be printed in soft lithographic colors. Ecologically speaking, Ojai is officially “high desert”—but it feels more like Shangri-La: mostly temperate in the winter, it’s warm in spring and fall, and hot in the summer, though coastal fog can roll over the mountains now and again to cool the hottest days.

Ojai’s mountains run east to west, a rarity in this state and in the world.  Many consider this geologic configuration a special blessing of the landscape, and find a particular spirituality in the Valley.  At sunset, especially in the winter, this unusual geography often produces a magnificent vision behind Thacher: the face of 6,244-foot Topa Topa Mountain, suffused with radiant rose light as if illuminated from within. The whole town stops in its tracks just to admire this “Pink Moment”—one of the many unique aspects of living in the Ojai Valley, with mountains for hiking and riding right in our backyard, beaches just a few miles away, and remarkably easy access to the small-city bustle of Santa Barbara (45 minutes from Thacher) and the cosmopolitan allure of Los Angeles (85 miles distant).  It feels like the best of all possible worlds.