Beverly Hills, thats where I want to be! Part 1 - Catalina Island
Ok ok ok, the long and overdue blog of our trip to the west coast. Fortunately, two years in a row, my work allowed me to visit San Diego again for a conference. Last year, Amy and I had a blast, so when the opportunity arose, I could not pass it up. This year; however, we extended the trip a bit. We left on a Thursday, so we could enjoy Thursday through Sunday. The conference started on a Monday. I have to thank Nathan's mema, because she watched Nathan the entire 9 days or so we were gone. Ok, now to the trip.
We drove Tuesday afternoon to Moon, PA to drop Nathan off at his mema's house. We also stayed Wed at Memas' as well. Thursday morning we left from Pittsburgh International Airport for Las Vegas. Unfortunately, after being dropped off, we discovered that our flight was delayed an hour. It was due to delays in Philly for some reason. We left da burgh about 11am or so and arrived in Las Vegas, to witness a heavy, but small thunderstorm directly on the airport while we landed. The highlight of the flight was seeing the Grand Canyon from the air. I took a few pics, but they did not turn out too well from the air.
At the airport, with only 40 or minutes or so to catch our connecting flight to San Diego, we rushed to the gate, to find out the flight was delayed a little over a half hour. The woman at the gate was sort of a smart ass to me when I asked her if the flight was on time. I should of looked more closely at the screen behind her. Anyway, we had a little time, so we went and grabbed a bite at the Airport BK. Afterwards we donated a dollar to an airpot slot machine, just to say we did it. We eventually left for San Diego. By the time we were finished ascending, the flight was about ready to decend. It is not very far from Vegas to SD. I did not realize it, but SanDiego is one of the more busier airports in the country with only one runway. I think Miami had the busiest with one runway.
Upon arriving at SD, went to pick up our rent a car. I ordered a midsized car from Priceline. I thought it was a pretty decent deal. However, a midsized car to Hertz is a Carolla. I was a little surprised by the car. It was at least 2 cars larger than the cheapest economy/compact car, I wonder if they consider that to be a scotter? Regardless, I could not complain about the new Carolla, it definately had enough pickup for a smaller car. My main concern was having decent enough power to drive on Interstate 5 and in Hollywood, so the Carolla ended up being powerfull enough and economical.
We drove the car up to Dana Point, CA. We had reservations at a Best Western that was 500 feet directly in front of the Pacific Ocean. We could hear the waves crash from our hotel door. The room was fair. That night we were looking for a place to eat, and discovered the Harbour House Cafe. This Diner was fire-engine red restaurant looked like a nice place to eat. We discovered that it had been around since 1939, and served all of the great Diner type dishes and breakfasts all day. At this restaurant, Amy had the best tunafish sandwhich she ever had. And my crab sammich was amazing as well. If we would of stayed at Dana Point again, we definately would had dined there at the Hourbor Cafe again. The place was packed at 8pm at night. It looked like a lot of locals patronize the place. We later overheard other's recommending it as a great place to eat to those not from the area. So we were lucky to find it.
Friday morning we woke up early, 6am, and checked out 630. We drove our car to Dana Point to catch the Catalina Express, a boat that taxis passengers to Catalina. We had a 7:15 departure time. I would have to say that finding parking for this event was a nightmare. The company does not warn you of where to park. I, like 98% of the tourists pulled into the wrong spot, and were told to drive to another part of harbour to park our car, and walk back to wait inline for the boat. That really ticked me off. Fortunately, my father in law packed us with written directions for parking. Unfortunately, I forgot I had the directions.
The day at first was overcast and cool. We climbed aboard the Catalina express and set sail for an 1hr 15min journey. It was too windy and cool to sit on the outside of the boat, so we finally gave in and sat in the cabin. Halfway or more through the trip, I went on the outside front of the boat and started snapping pictures of Cataline coming into sight. I could see some rays of sun beaming on Catalina, but it was still an overcast day in general.
Our first impressions off the boat was like we were visiting another country, perhaps a Mediteranian type place with the weather and mountainous terrain. Homes were built on the edge of mountains in the City of Avalon, the only city on the Island. The rest of the Island was uninhabited. The water and city were beautiful. The water was extremely blue, like the Carribian. There were cool shops and other touristy things along the main street. Old homes graced the gentle sloaping town as well as the steep hills. Avalon itself is only one square mile. There was a cool beach area with sand in the middle of the city. We were early enough that there was no one laying out or swimming, and shops were just opening up.
A cool thing about Avalon is that there are not many cars, mostly golf carts. Infact, to obtain a car, you were on a waiting list that was currently 18 years (like getting steeler tickets). We went on two tour excursions. One was the inland tour. We went in a small bus up some steep and narrow roads up through avalon and the mountains. We drove on skyline drive, and along the way saw some of the famous Catalina Buffalo. We learned alot of interesting facts about the Island, like it was owned by Mr. Wrigley (yes the same one for the gum, and former owner of the cubs. He had a mansion on the island that was now a fancy bed and breakfast. The Cubs had spring training on the island for 30 years at one point. You may wonder about the buffalo? The were brought to the island in the early 19 century for Hollywood movies. Later we discovered that John Wayne had a house there, and liked it because he would not be bothered. At over 1600 ft in a very short period of time we ended the journey at the Airport in the Sky. There was a cargo plane parked there, and some rich folks would fly there planes to to the mainland. Beside seeing a ton of cactus and other coold plants, I was hoping to see a Catalina Fox, which are native only to the island, but did not luck out.
We did not have much time to eat lunch, since our second tour was bumped up an hour. So we decided to wait for our Seal Rock tour. This was a boat tour to the southern part of the island. This is a summer only tour, because the seals are only there in the summer. Amy and I had alot of fun seeing the seals in the wild. We actually got a bit close to some of them in the boat who were sunning themselves. On the coast, there were at least 40 or so sea lions. We also saw something that was suppose to be rare, a huge sealion and seal resting a foot or two from each other on a rock. The tourguide sayed the two species do not usually get a long, especially in cloes proximity. The boat trip in general was awesom. We both learned even more about he island. The water was even more beutiful on the souther portion of the island.
Finally, after taking a couple of tours that took up a majority of the day we dined at an Italian Restaurant on the water. It was neat to see people kayaking and swimming only a few feet from our table. We had the "Day Old Spaghetti". It was pretty good.
The rest of the adventure was finding each of us a cool tshirt. We were not interested in getting another one from San Diego, plus Catalina is much more unique. It took the rest of our hours on the island, but we were happy with our purchases in the end. Finally, after a long day, we set sail back to Dana Point at 7pm. We were tired, but had an awesome trip. The sun was beautiful falling behind the island.
Part 2 soon!
I bid you goodnight.