CAMARILLO : Fiesta Parade Shines Through a Foggy Day

A chilly quilt of fog at Camarillo’s Fiesta Parade on Saturday forced some marchers to come up with unusual ways to stay warm.

“I’m not as cold anymore because they started the car and I’m standing here in the exhaust,” said Sharon Carleton, a 41-year-old belly dancer from Camarillo who trailed a pickup truck, twirling in circles and shaking her midriff.

Others, like Eleanor Sweeney, a 15-year-old cheerleader from Rio Mesa High School, chose less toxic alternatives.

“We’ll warm up with our tosses,” said the Oxnard resident, who huddled with other squad mates at the parade’s starting point. “But hopefully the sun will come out.”

The sun never did shine, but about 500 residents still lined Arneill Road to watch the 45-minute parade, one of several events marking Camarillo’s 31st birthday. The city was incorporated Oct. 22, 1964.

Some residents cheered as ruby red fire engines blasted their ear-punishing sirens. Others clapped as a squadron of baton twirlers launched their wands into the air.

But for longtime Camarillo resident Bobbie Neri-ibe, the nearly 40 parade entries offered merely an excuse to meet and greet her neighbors.

“This is the only time of the year that everyone comes out and gets reacquainted,” said Neri-ibe, a 45-year-old customer service representative, who has seen Camarillo’s population mushroom from about 1,500 to more than 56,000 since she moved here in 1958. “It’s a community gathering.”

Jimmy Kappen got perhaps the best view of the gathering while riding a unicycle that transformed him into a seven-foot giant. The 11-year-old wheeled down the parade route with dizzying confidence, circling around street signs and tapping the tops of marcher’s heads.

“I like being so high,” the Camarillo resident said. “You see a lot more.”

As the parade slowed to a stop at the Ponderosa Avenue end point shortly before 11 a.m., spectators and participants streamed into Constitution Park, where a carnival stretched into the night. Although a Dixieland band belted out jazz tunes and more than 50 booths and children’s rides ringed the park’s oval lawn, one corner attraction appeared to draw the most attention.

In a straw-filled pen, 12 downy white piglets nursed from a large sow sprawled on her side.

“They’re cute,” 11-year-old Stephanie Gaudig of Camarillo said over the squeals of the little porkers. “They look like they’re so soft and cuddly.”