Catalina was awesome... We haven't had that much fun in ages. It's interesting how enjoyable this trip was - the hotel we stayed in was about 1.5 steps up from camping: there was a pretty serious (and disgusting) sewage problem our first night; the service was mostly unremarkable. Other than a sliding door, our room lacked windows, and therefore, circulation. Luckily the air conditioner worked. The decor was ugly. Fake dark wood furniture, hundred year old industrial tile in the bathroom. Really ugly bedding, hard-as-a-rock mattress, harder pillows: not built for comfort, our room. The place was relatively clean, though, the tile in the shower was so dark it was kind of hard to tell. There was a lovely iron burn on the carpet. Patrick read some poor reviews on the place after we booked our reservation, which included the boat trip from LB to Avalon, so we decided to go with it. It really was a bargain, but you get what you pay for. They did provide free breakfast (toast, English muffins, Eggo Waffles; the "Mexican Scramble" was surprisingly good); the view was nice, and... Oh, I guess that's about all I can say that's good about the hotel.
The rest of our trip, though, was awesome. We met up with our friends Chris and Monica at the Catalina Express landing in downtown Long Beach. I had received my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows from Bo the night before, and started reading it on the Jet Cat, which turned out to be a huge mistake... apparently reading in cars and reading on boats produces in me the same, nauseating reaction. Or it could have been the 200 preadolescent teenagers we were sitting by and the one stinky infant in front of us. Cute, but: stinky. The blend of smells was really not good for me. Anyway, thankfully the trip is short, and we all vowed to sit outside on the return trip.
Once we arrived, we were supposed to have been met by a hotel shuttle; because he read the reviews, Patrick knew there was a chance they wouldn't show, and he was right. The hotel was a short walk (a short uphill walk) from the landing, so we all set off through the main drag of Avalon. It was a gorgeous day, and there was lots to look at. It's been awhile since I've been there, and I remembered a few things; it's very beautiful there, in spite of the recent fire. We arrived at the hotel at about the same time some other passengers from our boat arrived, having been picked up in what looked like a golf cart that had been upgraded to a gardening truck. I guess they called the hotel? They had more luggage than we did, and obviously had had to wait. The man who checked us in explained that the van had "just" broken down the day before.
How convenient!
After stowing our luggage in our rooms, Chris and Monica met us, and we headed down to walk around and find some place to eat. We wound up at Antonios Pizzeria. It was very good, and a good start to our trip. After that, we went back to the hotel, changed into our swimsuits, and headed to the Descanso Beach Club. Catalina has a couple of free beaches, and we had to pay $2 per person at Descanso, but Chris and Monica, who wanted to snorkel, preferred it. It was fine with us. I didn't go into the water on Friday, feeling a little weird about it (don't ask me why. There were no waves at all). Then again, I had 700 pages of Harry Potter to read: I was fine, lying there on my towel with my book, working (with not much success) on my farmer tan. That thing is heavy duty. Later, some very nice people gave us their beach chairs (the Beach Club rents them), and I was even more comfortable. Patrick took a nap, and Chris and Monica spent about 3 or 4 hours swimming in the ocean.
After the beach, we went back to the hotel to clean up, and met later for dinner, at the El Galleon. We thought we were early enough to beat karaoke night, but unfortunately the last 30 minutes of our meal was accompanied by an older (white) man's deconstructivist version of "Sex Machine" - other than his performance, the rest was all mostly forgettable. There was a guy, named "Kevin" who looked amazingly like Kevin Ryder from the Kevin and Bean show; his musical selections tended toward country (he performed Garth Brooks' "Friends in Low Places," and another song by Waylon Jennings), so I'm not sure if it was that Kevin or not. I got a blurry photo of him in the background of a picture I was supposedly taking of Monica (if it was him, I didn't want to be so obviously staring at him; if it wasn't, well, obviously I didn't want to be so obviously staring at him). Photos will be uploaded at a later time. Anyway, I guess I only like karaoke when David "Studebaker Hawk" is DJing. Michelle, the DJ at the El Galleon, was horrible.
When we got back to our rooms, it turned out that the water that we saw flowing down the street below our hotel and the pipes being worked on by about 12 guys was affecting our toilets, because there was a very bad gurgling sound emanating from our bathroom. Though there was no spillage or (thank god) flooding, we were unable to use our toilets until about 2 a.m., and even then, something was still not quite right.
Saturday, though, was the best day. In the morning, we visited the tiny library so that Patrick could get a first-hand look at their computers and network equipment: all that stuff is going to be upgraded soon, and he's the guy who will probably either have to do it or provide instructions to the person who does. After that we went on the semi-submersible submarine tour and looked at all the fish there were to be seen in the ocean that day. We saw of garibaldis, which, as I found out from the guide, are the official state fish of California. They are also, I found out just now from Wikipedia, sequential hermaphrodites, a fact the tour guide neglected to mention. I thought I saw a California Sheephead, but there were mostly garibaldis, smelt, and bass. Still, it was fun, and very pretty. After that, Patrick and I rented a golf cart and went on a self guided tour of the island. We didn't go very far, but we did go, mostly, UP - the view from some of those lookout points was gorgeous. Anyway, again: more photos to come, later. We were able to see more of the spots that were brown and had been burned, but since we were prohibited from visiting a lot of the island that had been affected by the fire, we didn't see much of that, but we did see lots of gorgeous homes, beautiful views, and other people in rented golf carts.
Chris and Monica got back from a very long hike at about the same time we returned from our golf cart ride, and they were ready to hit the beach. Monica had gone solo kayaking the day before, and had talked Patrick into wanting to try it. I was a little less excited about going out in a kayak, but I let Monica persuade me that it was easy. I'm glad I did. Kayaking was sooo much fun. We were out for about an hour and a half, and didn't go very far from shore. We did travel pretty far away from the starting point, and even (crash) landed on a rocky beach - on purpose! The waves at that beach were a bit stronger than the ones at Descanso, and since we didn't want to lose our kayak or the oars, we only stayed there for a little while before climbing back in and launching ourselves back into the ocean. If you wanted to see something funny, it would be me and Patrick attempting to navigate waves in a kayak; fortunately, there will be no photos to come, just our memories.
Anyway, I'll spare you the rest of the trip. We had fun; I finished Harry Potter; we saw "Ratatouille" at the Casino movie theater (it was the only thing playing - the theater was beautiful, the movie was very good), and we're home now.
I missed my cats!
No comments:
Post a Comment