Many Already Going Forth for the Fourth

While the briquettes heated up at the Lake Casitas campground, three boys struggled with a tent while three more stumbled from the trees with their arms full of logs.

The mother in charge, Lydia Lopez, had organized it all.

From the mosquito-repellent candles, to the sleeping bags with built-in pillows, to the hangers that would be untwisted to roast marshmallows around the fire, the 37-year-old Lopez didn’t leave anything to chance when planning this Fourth of July weekend.

Lopez was one of many getting an early start on what, for some, will be a four-day Independence Day weekend. Temperatures are expected to stay warm inland and hazy at the coast through the holiday on Tuesday.

“I would be very surprised if anything had been forgotten,” Lopez said Friday afternoon, surveying her industrious children, their friends and the loot she had carried from her Oxnard home. “I’ve been planning this for a long time.”

Lopez was waiting for her cousin to arrive with still more children. “At first we thought we would just come for the day and then we decided, let’s just take them all and make it a weekend of camping,” she said, preparing to roast sausages.

Although there were fewer people than might be expected at Lake Casitas on the Friday afternoon before a big holiday, the gate attendant said the 400 reserved camping spaces had been booked for two weeks.

Dave Dixon, a park host who lives at the campground, said that, because the holiday falls on a Tuesday this year, many campers worked Friday and would take Monday off.

“They’ll start coming later tonight and on Saturday,” he said, listening to country music as he reclined in a lawn chair and smoked a cigarette. “They’ll pile in. It will be loaded.”

Around Lake Casitas’ water playground, exuberant children played and splashed in the water. “When it’s hot, this place is packed,” said 17-year-old Melody Shedlosky, a lifeguard. “It’ll get way worse later in the weekend. We sell 230 tickets per hour.”

Temperatures were pleasant under a shining sun in Ojai on Friday, while coastal areas were mired in a thick, moist haze most of the day. That weather will stay with the county through Tuesday, according to Curt Kaplan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

“This is typical June gloom . . . the beginning-of-June weather, not July weather,” Kaplan said. “It will be here for a few days.”

Although the holiday weekend started early for some, others faced the unhappy prospect of returning to work for a day before having a Tuesday holiday.

No one wants to hear a 6 a.m. alarm the day before or the day after an evening of hot dogs, patriotism and fireworks. But many county residents will have dates with their desks come Monday morning.

Last year, the holiday fell on Sunday, and the year before it was a Saturday. This year, many are having to choose between taking vacation time, calling in sick or just grinning and bearing it while they trudge off to work.

The 1,200 workers at GTE--one of the area’s largest employers--will not have Monday off, something that left more than a few employees grumbling.

“It’s not an official holiday,” said Julia Wilson, a spokeswoman for the company, who mentioned that by now she could have been drinking pina coladas with her boyfriend on a Jamaican beach.

Instead, she will be at her desk. “I’ll be taking my red, white and blue into the office.”

County offices also will be open Monday. So will the Camarillo Airport, where Scott Smith, assistant director of airports, works. He said he would rather be at his Simi Valley home riding horses.

But Moorpark’s City Council decided to give the city’s 51 full-time employees the day off--with pay.

“Historically, it was a slow work day for public contacts,” explained Stephanie Shaw, the city’s recreation director. “We’re family orientated and figure people want to spend the day with their families.”

WellPoint, a Thousand Oaks health care company, also is giving employees a companywide reprieve, allowing switchboard operator Lorena Dominguez time for a five-day Ensenada excursion with her family.

While she is making the five-hour drive, surrounded by like-minded holiday revelers, she could be bumper-to-bumper with an Amgen medical researcher.

The Newbury Park company also gave its employees Monday off.