Catalina!
If you’ve been reading my blog recently, you know that Joe was taking me on a surprise trip yesterday. I vowed to take pictures with my camera phone and send them along the way so that you’d know what the surprise was, as soon as I did! You’ll be happy to know that we took pictures with the regular camera too.
What a gorgeous place to visit! As many of you know, I have a list of things I haven’t done in Southern California and Catalina was at the top of my list!
We left the house late…something I seem to be good at doing recently…but arrived in Newport with plenty of time to get the tickets for the boat. We took the Catalina Flyer, a catamaran, at 9am and boarded it again at 4:30pm for the return home.
Once we got to Catalina, we figured that it would be best to book the tours we talked about seeing. We were both interested in the Skyline Drive, which included a 2-hr narrated journey along the “Skyline Drive”, ten miles into Catalina’s interior. Friends of ours had also recommended the Casino Tour, a guided tour of the Avalon Theatre and the world-famous Casino Ballroom in beautiful Art Deco glory. Since many of the tours were already booked for the day, we were only able to schedule one. We chose Skyline Drive and weren’t disappointed. On my first trip to Catalina, it was great to learn about the island’s history and culture.
During the course of the day we also walked around Avalon to take in everything. What a wonderful day! There was so much to see and we were snapping pictures left and right! You can see most of them by clicking on the picture above. It will take you to my flickr.com page where you can browse through the 80 pictures I posted.
Thank you, Joe, for a truly memorable day of fun with you!
I’m curious to find out how Catalina’s culture differs from Newport’s. Do the natives have different customs?
Mon May 30, 2005 at 2:57 pmJust in case that was an actual question, yeah, it’s quite different over there. On the vacationing side of things, that place is a big time tourist attraction. While that’s a little different than Balboa and Newport where we launched from, it’s the local side of things that’s really different over there. The fact that there are only 800 cars allowed on the island at one time and there’s a 14 year waiting list to get a car over there is just weird. The shortage of fresh water and the fact that part of their plumbing system work on salt water is another pretty big difference. You really get the feeling that you’re quite a lot farther away from the big cities than you actually are. And mind you, Monique and I have never been too far away from home, but it was a very cool visit.
Mon May 30, 2005 at 4:40 pmWhat a perfect day. Your pictures are amazing! I love Catalina. Next time you go, try to stay the night. We stayed at a really cute place that was inexpensive and gorgeous. Then you can go see a movie at the Casino. When Wrigley owned the island, he built the Casino. It didn’t have gambling, but had a movie theater and a gorgeous dance hall. The movie theater was designed by the same guy who designed Mann’s Chinese Theater. It’s gorgeous and they play current movies. But on weekend nights, they have a person play the vintage organ that was used for silent films. In the 1940’s, people from LA used to take boats over from LA to the island to dance and listen to big bands like Jimmy Dorsey. Catalina is a magical place - Joe did a great job!
Mon May 30, 2005 at 6:43 pmI also found it fascinating that people drive in golf carts everywhere and that they are limited to one golf cart per household. These people even trick them out or have them custom made…a sort of “Pimp My Ride” for golf carts. We enjoyed looking at some of them parked along the streets.
I would love to live there! What an amazing place.
Thanks for the history on The Casino, Shana. It is a magical place!
Tue May 31, 2005 at 10:47 amI went there for a senior trip back in 1993 and have not been back since. I remember doing the walk up the hill to the Wrigley Monument - was that still there? I also did the glass bottom boat thing but do not remember being that impressed with it. I am glad to hear you had such a great time.
Tue May 31, 2005 at 8:41 pmYeah, Shannon, it was weird to plan Monique’s first trip there and NOT do the glass bottom boats. But while it’s such a cool sounding idea, it’s just not that impressive once you actually experience it.
We did see the Wrigley house up on top of the hill, not sure if the monument is there or somewhere else. But I bet it’s still there, wherever it was.
Tue May 31, 2005 at 9:24 pmWell, Diane and I went about 3 years ago and they still had the Wrigley monument then. Just can stand at the bottom and stare up at the thing and think to yourself, “Wow! What’s the bfd?” It ain’t all that great. But when it comes to the glass bottom boats I have to loudly, violently, hair-pullingly disagree. Those are AWESOME. Maybe it depends on the kind. They have the ones where it’s just a boat with a glass floor. I can’t speak for those. The kind we went on, you climb down into the belly and look out portholes like the old submarine ride at Disneyland. It’s oodles of fun.
Wed Jun 1, 2005 at 4:55 amWe did that skyline drive too. It was really awesome, except for the part where the bus broke down. Fortunately it happened at the top and we just kicked back in the restaurant for the replacement to show up. Was it nice and green? I bet that was cool if it was. We went in the summer and stuff was pretty dried out. (although there was a species of Queen Anne’s Lace blooming that is found only on Catalina and nowhere else. That’s pretty cool.
My last time there was about 10 years ago and I’ve never done any of the inland tours… those sound pretty cool. I’ve only done the boat/water related tours and walked the tourist shops in Avalon. But before that, my first trip to Catalina (about 8 years old) was flying in with my mom, dad and sister with dad as the pilot of a little Cessna. We had lunch at the airport’s cool cafe and then the only other thing I remember was a long walk on dirt roads where we saw the water buffalos and I picked up lots of “fools’ gold”.
Wed Jun 1, 2005 at 9:39 amBy the way, that time that I did go 10 years ago, we took the boat over there and then took a sunset helicopter ride back. That was freakin’ awesome!!
Wed Jun 1, 2005 at 9:40 amWow, it’s cool that everyone’s got some stories about that place. I had some fun over there with our senior class trip in High School. I remember we convinced Russ to rent a boat (he was the only one with a credit card) and we pretty much destroyed the engine and had to be towed back to the harbor.
The tour bus was brown, and a crazy ride as we thought we were going over the edge of the mountain quite a few times. Great tour.
Wed Jun 1, 2005 at 10:45 pmKaren and I have been going a couple times a year since we first met and everytime we find something new and exciting to do. We’ve been all over the island and some of the cool highlights are:
- The Glass Bottom boats
- The Submarine ride (the one Jason mentioned)
- 14′ boat rentals (cruise the east to south side of the island)
- The Casino tour is nice with lots of information on the history
- Two island tours (one by land, which Joe & Monique did, and the other by ocean)
- Descanso Beach is a bit more private and they have a bar right on the beach.
- DEFINITELY the helicopter ride! It is TOTALLY worth the trip alone. Especially if you get a good pilot who who lets you swoop downtown Long Beach and Vincent Thomas bridge near San Pedro!
Shana: sorry for sounding nitpicky but it’s Grauman’s Chinese Theater again… Hooray! And that casino tour is pretty cool especially when they bring you out on the dance floor on the upper level! Did you do the tour?
Thu Jun 2, 2005 at 7:58 am