Hello Everyone!
I’m writing to you this week from grey and chilly San Diego. I began this week with a trip to Catalina Island and have spent the rest of it moving down the coast and catching up with friends along the way. It’s been great to see so many familiar faces and catch up on what they’ve been up to, but I haven’t gotten any photos edited or published this week as a result. I do have some great photo posts lined up though and I will definitely get to a few of them this week. I’ve had some fun adventures this week but it’s also been fairly quiet.
Path to Descano Beach
I was up early on Wednesday and off to Catalina Island from Long Beach. Parking at the terminal wasn’t cheap, but it was quick and easy and very convenient to the boat. The Catalina Express is huge and very comfortable and stable. It was a beautiful sunny morning, so I nabbed a seat on the top deck and got a little bit of sun on the way out to the island. When we arrived in Avalon (the main town on Catalina), I was a bit overwhelmed with how crowded it was. There was a cruise ship in that day so there were hundreds of people going here and there and everywhere but the crowds would die down as the day progressed. I had a room booked at the Catalina Island Inn, so I popped in to see if I could leave my bag there for the day. They couldn’t have been nicer or more accommodating and even took my number so they could call me when my room was ready. I left my bag, took my camera and headed out into the day.
I very quickly started to feel the charms of Avalon despite the hustle and bustle of a busy day. Catalina is known for its glazed clay tiles and they adorned buildings, benches and fountains in colorful mosaics. I wandered down the waterfront and past the Tuna Club and the Yacht Club, both open to members only but both housed in beautiful old buildings that I enjoyed looking at. Then I came to the Casino which towers above the town of Avalon like the Coliseum in Ancient Rome, visible from almost everywhere you go. Built almost a hundred years ago, the Casino has never been a place for gambling, but rather takes its name from an old Italian word for a small house, but which generally meant a place to socialize and dance. I took a tour of the Casino which, while it cost more than my visit to the Hearst Castle, was excellent. Downstairs is home to a grand theater which was the first theater in the country built specifically to show “talkies” or movies with sound. It’s still used as a theater today, showing movies on Friday and Saturday nights. My tour also included the dressing rooms and the incredible upstairs ballroom – the largest circular, free standing ballroom in the world which has a 180 foot diameter dancefloor and can accommodate 3,000 dancers (which it does on New Year’s Eve and other special occasions).
The Casino was built by William Wrigley Jr. who had purchased almost all of Catalina Island back in 1919 with money made from his chewing gum empire. Wrigley was responsible for most of what we see on Catalina today, including the 85% of the island controlled by the Catalina Conservancy which will remain undeveloped in perpetuity. Wrigley owned the Chicago Cubs who played (and still play) at Wrigley Field and for many years they had their Spring Training on Catalina Island. Wrigley was aware of the fact that he had made his fortune a nickel at a time selling chewing gum, so he wanted to be sure his island was available and affordable to regular people. While my time there wasn’t cheap, it was no more expensive than a day at Disney would have been. To get up to the ballroom in the Casino, we made our way up wide ramps, a design feature Wrigley took from his namesake baseball stadium in Chicago. I also got a kick out of the fact that a man named James Dougherty had once been a projectionist in the theater at the Casino. James Dougherty was married to Norma Jeane Dougherty (nee Baker) who worked as a taffy puller at Lloyds on Crescent Street. Catalina remembers her as Norma Jeane Dougherty, but we, of course, remember her as Marilyn Monroe. Catalina was full of stories like these and I enjoyed every one of them.
After my tour of the Casino, I wandered down to Descano Beach and sat at the outdoor beach bar for a beer. With just the tiniest bit of imagination, it was easy to picture myself in a beach bar on a far off and exotic island, but if I looked hard enough I could see L.A.’s Santa Monica Mountains across the water. Since Avalon is on the southeast corner of the island, the harbors are protected so the water is calm and clear and on a sunny day it was turquoise and magical. I stayed for another beer. Then I got a call from my hotel telling me that my room was ready so I headed back downtown and checked in to a lovely little room on the second floor. I spent the rest of the day just moseying around town, taking photos and soaking up the sunshine and the history of the place. I watched the sun go down behind the mountains, had a sea bass sandwich at the Lobster Trap and called it an early night.
Thursday morning I was up pretty early and took a few more photos in the morning light. I went for breakfast at the Pancake Cottage and while it was a little pricey for pancakes, the ocean view more than made up for it. After checking out, I decided to spend some time in the local history museum. As I’m sure you know, I go to a lot of little history museums and this was one of the best I’ve seen. The displays were thorough but concise and I was out of there in a little over an hour with a very good understanding of the island’s history. I learned about the Native Americans who utilized the local soapstone to make jewelry and tools which they traded far and near. I learned about the early settlers and the fire that wiped their town out, paving the way for William Wrigley Jr. to buy the island and the development he brought with him. There was a great look at the movies that have been filmed there, Tiki culture and even the story of Old Ben, a massive sea lion who used to wander around Avalon begging for (or stealing) fish.
After leaving the museum, I made my way up to the old Chimes Tower which had been installed in 1926 by Wrigley at his wife, Ada’s request. She wanted to share her love of music with the people of Avalon and the bells still chime every quarter hour. You never have to bring your watch to the beach with you in Avalon, because the chimes will let you know what time it is. There are also great views over the harbor and the Casino from up there. When I came down I headed back out to Descano Beach because I needed to try the local cocktail called Buffalo’s Milk. A dozen bison had been brought to Catalina for the 1925 filming of the movie adaptation of Zane Grey’s The Vanishing American, and after the filming was completed had been left to wander the island. Their herd has grown to about 150 and they are much beloved by the people of Catalina. A bartender named Michael Hoffler out in Two Harbors (the other, smaller town on Catalina) had created this cocktail many years ago and it is delicious. It tastes like a white Russian with banana liqueur in it and I probably could have drank a hundred of them (but at $20 a pop I settled for just the one). I sat by the water and soaked it all in for about an hour before it was time to wander back to the pier and head back to Long Beach, very sated from my short visit to Catalina Island.
In the evening I caught up with an old guiding friend of mine, Mike, near his home in Newport Beach. Mike was a senior leader when I began guiding, and was a big inspiration to me to get out and see the world. When I started guiding, I didn’t realize it would be a seasonal job, and six months after I started, I was laid off for the winter. I asked my boss what people did in the interim and he rattled off a half a dozen options from ski towns to scuba diving. Then he pointed to Mike and said ‘that guy travels to the far corners of the planet’ and that seemed like a great idea. While I haven’t been to any “far corners” in a long time, I did spend many years traveling the globe, something I hope to do more of in the near future. It’s always great to see Mike and to hear about where he’s been and where he’s going – he just recently returned from some time in Algeria. We shared a delicious Thai meal and caught up for a few hours and then I exhaustedly hit the sack.
I was up on Friday morning because I had an appointment to get my brakes done while I was there in Newport Beach. They’ve done well and I’m very conscious of and easy on my brakes, but it’s time to get them replaced. When I arrived for my appointment I was told they couldn’t get to it until the end of the day if at all. I tried to explain what the purpose of scheduling an appointment was and how challenging it is when you’re traveling and while he was apologetic he wasn’t budging either. I very rarely post negative reviews on Yelp! which I use often to find anything from a good bar to a decent mechanic, but that was poor service and it needed to be called out. The good thing about review sites is that it keeps people honest and on their toes.
I tucked into the library for a bit to get some work done and then in the afternoon I headed over to catch up with my friend Julia. You may remember the last time I caught up with Julia was when I was up in Duluth, Minnesota and she was in town for a wedding. I went for a chilly October swim in Lake Superior, not realizing the wedding was going on down the beach and everyone was watching me swim. I met her friends later for drinks and we all had a good laugh about it. Anyways, Julia and her fiancé Richard live in Huntington Beach, so I wanted to catch up with them on the way through. I met up with Julia in the afternoon and we headed down to the beach and out to the pier. Huntington Beach is probably better known as Surf City, USA and is home of some of the country’s biggest surfing competitions and they were set up for one over the weekend. We saw some surfers out there catching some waves and some fun surf memorabilia everywhere we looked, including the world’s largest surfboard. In the evening we caught up with Richard and went to a great comedy show, followed by a few drinks and a lot of catching up.
I stayed with them on Saturday as well and on Sunday they invited me to go with them to Richard’s sister’s house for an Easter barbecue and pool party. It was a fun time with a lot of really good food and music around the pool. One of their friends was Woo Hwang who had been a contestant on seasons 28 and 31 of Survivor and was a really nice guy. Even Richard’s mom was there and she regaled me with stories of growing up in L.A. It was nice to spend the holiday with friends and it was a good day.
I took off on Monday and headed down the coast towards San Diego. I drove through a lot of pretty towns along the way and took my time as there were a number of accidents blocking the way south from Carlsbad to San Diego. I finally plunged into the traffic which was at least moving at that point and drove south and then east and up to the Normal Heights neighborhood where I went to visit my friend Heidi. Some of you may remember that way back in 2018 I went to a wedding in Florida of my friend Peter who had lived in the next city up from me from 2010-2012 in Japan. Heidi is Peter’s sister and it was really great to hang out with her for the night. She is a college professor and an artist and is around my age and we had a really great conversation over some steaming bowls of ramen in her neighborhood.
Giraffe at the Zoo
We continued the conversation in the morning, but I had to head across town to Pacific Beach to meet up with another friend, Molly. Molly had trained the same year as I did for my old tour company and had gone on to be a sales manager in our New Jersey office. I hadn’t seen her in many years but caught up with her a bit at our big reunion last summer and she invited me to stay the next time I was in San Diego. We have a ton in common from mutual friends to great travel stories so it’s been really good to spend some time with her over the last two days. On Tuesday we went for a nice hike up in Torrey Pines State Park which took us past rare trees and down along the rocky coast. We had some delicious Indian food in the evening and stayed up late chatting and listening to music.
Today Molly took me down to the San Diego Zoo. She has an annual pass, so I could get in as her guest which saved me the shocking $71 admission fee. She stayed with me for about an hour and then headed off to work and I spent the rest of the day wandering around and looking at the animals. It’s a massive place which is a little tough to navigate, but I saw a lot of animals I’d never seen before and even some I’d never even heard of. I was there right up until 6pm and then headed back to Molly’s and we grabbed some pizza and continued our conversation. She’s headed to bed and I’m going to wind this up and hit the sack myself.
This coming week I hope to get out into the desert. If it’s not too hot, I’d like to do some hiking in Anza Borrego State Park and Joshua Tree National Park and have a look around Palm Springs and some of the desert towns out there as well. By this time next week I may have ducked on into Arizona, but we’ll just have to wait and see how it all pans out. I hope you’re all enjoying your spring wherever you are. Have a great week out there and I hope to see you back here this time next week. Take care and thanks for reading.
-Mike