Go back in time at one of California’s last great beach towns

We’re going to talk about Carpinteria’s beach, its tar, its weed, its avocados, its tallest pine tree and the herd of alpacas in its hills. But first I should admit that I’m biased.

This little beach town between Ventura and Santa Barbara is where my wife and I spent our first two years of married life, strolling the coastal bluffs, biking the back roads, eating enchiladas on Linden Avenue and reading the local weekly’s misdemeanor-filled police blotter.

Now we live in Los Angeles, where the police blotter is a different kettle of fish. So every time we find ourselves on the way back from a trip north, we do our best to wedge in a day, or half a day, or even an hour, to reconnect with the town locals know as Carp.

Despite its many obvious charms, Mary Frances said the other day that Carpinteria “is not really on everybody’s radar. I like that farmland-meeting-ocean thing too.”

After so many quick stops, it was a luxury to spend two September days and nights in town. The stay made clear how much has changed in Carpinteria (population 12,950) and how much hasn’t.

The greatest constant is Linden Avenue, the main street that takes you down to the water’s edge, serving as the heart of town and subject of elementary school history projects. Its commercial core is a stretch of eight blocks from Carpinteria Avenue to the beach that’s highly walkable — except for when an Amtrak train rolls in, pauses for a moment, then rolls out again as kids and parents wait on the sidewalk, covering their ears.

Carpinteria City Beach, where Linden ends, is a lifeguard-monitored haven of gentle waves that local boosters for decades have called the “world’s safest beach.” A couple of volleyball courts are laid out on the sand to the left. Beyond them wait the open space, campsites and mile-long shoreline of Carpinteria State Beach, a dominant presence since the 1930s.

Another Carpinteria constant, at least since the 1980s, is the biggest event of the year: the California Avocado Festival, created to capitalize on one of the many fruits that thrive in the local climate. This year’s festival is coming up Oct. 6-8, with live music on four stages and a guacamole contest.

One thing we love about Carp is that downtown still feels like a place for flip-flops and beach cruisers, which seems ridiculous, given the median home price of $1.3 million and the row of beachfront mansions out on gated Padaro Lane whose owners have included George Lucas, Kevin Costner, Ellen DeGeneres, Portia De Rossi, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis.

But I’ve never seen those mansions, except at a distance from the beach.

In town, you’ll find two Motel 6s (we like the one on Carpinteria Avenue), one Best Western, one Holiday Inn Express, a few independent budget hotels and zero fancy resorts. At the Spot, a cash-only shack that’s the nearest eatery to the beach, you can get a burger for $6.

Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner trains stop five times daily at 475 Linden Ave., but there’s no train station, just a platform, a parking lot and public restrooms.

That said, the town is definitely changing.

On Carpinteria Avenue, a skate park opened in August next to City Hall. A farm-to-table restaurant called the Good Plow has taken over the old Fosters Freeze space. In coming months, the Santa Cruz Island Foundation’s Chrisman California Islands Center, a public education space devoted to the eight Channel Islands, is due to open at Linden and Carpinteria avenues.

On the southern side of Linden, workers are putting up a mixed-use development of shops, restaurants and services on the block where the old hardware store stood for about a century.

On the northern side of Linden, where the Palms restaurant for generations invited diners to grill their own steaks, the front door is now locked, closed since the early weeks of the pandemic. But in June, a restaurateur from New York bought the Palms. The neighbors are crossing their fingers.

Meanwhile, along Foothill Road (a.k.a. California 192), a wave of cannabis cultivators has moved into the nursery fields once dominated by flower growers. Here and there along Foothill you’ll sniff that skunky weed scent, including the area around Carpinteria High School.

To start a vigorous conversation among locals, just bring that up.

Or sidestep the vigorous conversation and take a bike ride on the bluffs south of town. Or a walk in the Carpinteria Salt Marsh Nature Park just north of town. Or book a visit to the Canzelle alpaca farm in the foothills (see below), where you may be permitted to feed an alpaca via mouth-to-mouth carrot transfer.

Then meander on Linden. Browse Rincon Designs surf shop (which rents boogie boards, surfboards and wet suits), check out art and crafts at Seaside Makers Collective or fondle old records at Murphy’s Vinyl Shack, where owner Kevin Murphy was cranking Van Morrison when I stopped by.

The pandemic was tough, but “Linden is a happening street nowadays,” Murphy told me. “There’s a family atmosphere here. My kids come here — they’re in their 30s — and they say this is like a ‘Twilight Zone’ episode. A throwback.”

Alas, there’s no Carpinteria Herald police blotter to read these days. The Herald died in the ’90s. But the Herald’s successor, the Coastal View News, still sends reporters out to do person-on-the-street interviews. That’s what one lady on Linden Avenue thought I was doing when I showed up on the sidewalk with notebook and camera.

“Are you the guy that asks questions?” she said, blocking my path.

Um, yes?

“No,” she said. “The guy from the Coastal View News?”

I tried to let her down gently.

Here are 17 things, new and old, to do in Carpinteria.