I'll be putting slide shows on here with different titles. Hoping this will work ok and you all can view the pictures.
Sunday, 2/22...........Kathy and I got up at oh god thirty (3am to leave at 4am) heading to catch the ferry to Catalina Island. Thank goodness it was a Sunday or we would have been trapped in rush hour(s) traffic!!!!!!!!!!!! It was an uneventful drive. And we do love the woman's voice on the GPS to guide us through to wherever we need to go. First place she guided us too was a Starbucks in Indio. WOOHOO for Starbucks. Always room for the good Starbucks latte. Ok. Now I'm a more happy camper. So, off we go in search of Dana Point, Ca and the Catalina Express ferry. We found it ok and just hung out until boarding time and our a little over an hour ride to the Island. We didn't see any whales but we seen some dolphins swimming along.....WOW! First sight of Catalina Island makes my legs tired just looking at it! The main little town of Avalon is sitting on the "flats", but after about one block of flat land, up you go. And up and up and up. Houses upon houses upon houses build on the hillsides. You don't have to worry about mowing your lawn here! Our "hotel room" is up a hill, of course. A LONG hill when you're pulling your suitcase behind you and are lazy like me. Its called Catalina Beach House, only one LONG VERY STEEP block from the beach and its in an old building. Hey! At least we're safe if a tsunami decides to come along!!!!!!!!!!!! Strange little place. Not bad, but kinda strange. Teeny lobby where you pick up the red phone to get someone's attention. We got all checked in and found our room. Two queen beds, tv, jacuzzi tub, tiny kitchen (no microwave, but everything else) except for the pot that goes to the coffee maker. Hmmmmmm. The ice machine is locked up so we had the girl who checked us in bring us a bucket of ice. There wasn't any night stand in between the beds, so we pulled out 3 dresser drawers, turned them upside down, stacked them on top of each other and we had a night stand. Instant night stand. I'd like to see the maid's eyes when she sees that! hahahahahaha.......We got all settled in and decided to roll back down the hill to the "flats" and explore Avalon. Its a cute little town for tourists. Lots of neat little shops and places to eat. I could sit and people watch and have a good time. Lots of strange people. We decided to take a tour of the town called the Avalon Scenic Tour. It was an "open air" bus. We both though it was only gonna be a "in town" tour, but we went up and up and up and around all these butt pucker corners. It was a neat tour and it sure was pretty up on the hillside. There is one HUGE mansion here that is now a bed and breakfast that is owned by Mr. Wriggley, as in Wriggley's gum. The Wriggley family owns alot of stuff here. There is alot of history here. We had noticed that this town is about 90% full of golf carts. The tour bus guy told us that there are only 800 cars allowed on the Island and there is a 15 year waiting list to get your car here from the mainland. So, when you're walking around in town ya gotta watch out for the golf carts. There a a gazillion of them running around.....We checked out some of the little shops and inquired about tours that we wanna do. We had a late lunch/early dinner at a most excellent seafood place called Armstrong's Fish Market & Seafood Restaurant. Kathy had wanted seafood and seeing as some cruise ships would be in the next day, we decided to eat there before the town was flooded with people off the ships. The food was FANTASTIC. I had a margarita and Kathy had Buffalo Milk. You can figure out what that is. ha! There is a Von's Express here for grocery shopping, so we decided to go buy breakfast things as we had the small kitchen. We did alot of walking and by time we climbed the hill to go back to our room, we chilled for awhile, watched Amazing Race, took turns in the jacuzzi tub, and then it was lights out a 9pm. Real party people we are. hahahahahahaha
From The Boat Ride
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The Island
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Transportation
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Eating
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Glass Bottom Boat
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Views from the city bus and the Avalon Town TourBubbleShare: Share photos - Easy Photo Sharing
Monday, 2/23.........Well, without the pot to make coffee, Kathy figured out a way to get the job done anyway with coffee filters and a sauce pan. It worked and we were able to each have a couple cups of coffee. We decided to go outside and sit on the patio and drink coffee, eat the cereal/milk we bought, and I would write the above entry in my blog. Guess what. It started to rain, so back inside we went. At least the rain didn't last long but we'll be taking umbrellas just in case when we leave for the day. Before we left we seen the maid and told her about not having a pot for the coffee maker. Nice lady went into the room next door and gave us the WHOLE coffee pot that was in there. Cool. No improvising to make coffee in the morning. So, off we go for the day. Down the hill, heading to the first place that makes lattes. Not Starbucks but it was pretty good and made me happy first thing in the morning. There were two things that we wanted to do today. Go on the glass bottom boat and Kathy was gonna go snorkeling. Off to the dive place we went. She got her wet suit/snorkel/fins/and mask. We went back to the ladies room at the ferry dock so she could put her wet suit on and then we walked to Lovers Cove where she could snorkel. I sat on the stairs that went down to the water taking pictures and watching her play "creature from the black lagoon" or maybe "nessie, lochness monster" or maybe "they call me flipper, flipper" or maybe "sea hunt" or maybe "20,000 leagues under the sea". hahahahahaha ....Oh, I know. She was playing Ariel, the Little Mermaid!!!!!!!!!!!!! You can see the Carnival Cruise ship in the background and also the Seaview Glass Bottom Boat and the little yellow sub, the Nautilus. Looked like she was having a good time cause everytime she came out of the water, she had a ####eating grin on her face. I wish she would have had an underwater camera cause she said that she seen some really neat fish. Gold colored fish, striped fish, and some with dots. I wish I could have filmed her cause she looked quite comical coming out of the water trying to keep her balance in her pretty blue fins. hahahahahaha....Maybe I should have done this with her. Check out the pictures of Kathy's snorkeling adventure. When she had enough, we walked back to the ladies room so she could get out of her "mermaid" stuff, turned all the equipment back in, and off we went to shop. There are so many little stores and we went into quite a few today. We found a place to share a french dip, Jack's Original Country Kitchen, then decided it was time to go ride the glass bottom boat. Riding on the boat was fun but it was not the most exciting glass bottom boat either one of us had been on. Finished up with this adventure and went back to "window shopping" in the stores again. We sat for quite awhile after that on a bench people watching and feeding the seagulls and pigeons. We probably had been doing that for about 20 minutes or so when a man walked by and casually said, "you can get a ticket for feeding the birds". I guess he was a "local" and we were glad he had told us that. The birds all went away to find some other food source. We went back to window shopping and walking our legs off. (I had quite the argument with my brain when it kept telling me that all this walking was "GOOD" for me!) I do believe my brain won the argument cause it kept telling my feet to keep moving. For dinner we went to Antonio's Pizzeria. This is a neat place where you throw your peanut shells on the floor. Kathy kept eating the peanuts but kept her shells piled on the table. I finally swept them off onto the floor. hahahahaha.......We ordered a pizza with 5 different kinds of cheese, then added our toppings. Applebacon/mushrooms/artichokes. Oh, YUMMY! What a good combination! Actually if I ever eat that kind of pizza again, I'll have a double order of artichokes! After we left the pizza place, it was time to make the long trek up the hill to our "home". So many golf carts passed us going up the hill that I was really tempted to hitchhike hoping some golf cart person would pick us up, but I didn't. We were so glad to take our turn in the jacuzzi tub. Oh so relaxing. Another 9pm bedtime. We're both just so, so tired. Gonna read our books and drift off into lala land.
Our Hotel Room and Patio
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Snorkeling
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Botanical Gardens and Other Plant Life
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Tuesday, 2/24..............What a glorious day! Although its a little chilly out and we have jackets on, its bright and sunny and its gonna be a nice, nice day. Kathy was up bright and early making coffee in a real coffee maker. Now we will sit on the patio drinking coffee and eating our leftover artichoke pizza. YUM!!! We just hung out in our hotel room, after coffee and pizza, most of the morning before checking out as we had to haul our suitcases with us all day before we caught the 4:30 ferry back to Dana Point. We checked out and headed down the hill to the espresso shop for my latte and Kathy’s coffee. Another cruise ship was in, so town was booming again. We decided to buy a day pass for the city bus and ride it all around town with intentions of getting off when we wanted and then getting back on again for more riding. We went to the botanical gardens. They were really neat. Took all kinds of pictures of all the different plants. We seen some real strange looking plants. There also is a mausoleum there where Mr. Wriggley used to “hang out” until his body was moved to his native chicago. We didn’t walk all the way up the steady incline to the mausoleum as we were pulling our suitcases behind us. Seeing as it was all uphill getting to the gardens, we decided not to take the bus part of the way down the hill so we could look for a couple of geocaches. Its alot easier going downhill with the suitcases then pulling them uphill! We found one cache. Then we seen a bus driver taking a break along the side of the road. Just happened to be the same guy who had taken us to the gardens. He was nice enough to load our suitcases into the bus and off we went for another bus ride. He took us back into town, dropped us off, and we went in search of another geocache at the local nursery. After that we still had some time to kill, so we went shopping again. Always fun to go shopping. Then we headed to the ferry dock. I sat with the suitcases while Kathy looked for a couple geocaches that were suppose to be near by. She didn’t find them. We boarded the Catalina Express and were off to Dana Point where the car was parked. We got back right in the middle of rush hour traffic. We had to head south on I-5 going towards San Diego. Swear to god the people in southern California sure are in a hurry to get home after work. I’m SO grateful that I don’t live in a big city. I couldn’t deal with all the people and cars. Anyway, we headed to see Kathy’s Aunt Lola in northern San Diego. Glad we didn’t have to drive right into the city. She also has a 1st cousin, Neva, who we’ll see tomorrow. Kathy has a nice, nice Auntie. Shes made me feel welcome in her home.
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