Catalina #6

For this post, things to know:
- Avalon is not a good place for two straight guys to hang out.
- Not everything is a submarine.

The last part of the trip was blessedly calm and easy.

We checked into our hotel, The Glenmore Plaza. It is a cute old building but by no means is it luxurious. It is apparently the second oldest, continuously operating hotel in California, who knew?

But it had beds and a shower. The shower was one of the longest and most refreshing I have ever taken in my life. Not to mention that the hotel’s free body wash was some sort of spa-quality, vitamin enriched lemon zest thing that made me smell awesome (What? Stop being so metro Jamie? Okay, fine.)

Then we wandered around town. Avalon is cute, but terribly boring. The “Casino” (the big round building which was never actually a casino) is big and all Art Deco beautiful.

We ended up eating dinner at a place that looked like a total dive but had the best blackened salmon that I’ve ever eaten and our waitress was awesome.

I was really struck by how many happy couples there were wandering around Avalon and I realized what a nice little weekend getaway it would be. I was left to wonder then how many people looking at Mike and I assumed that we were on a romantic weekend getaway. I wanted to yell at people, “Our hotel room has TWO beds!” or “I just kayaked through a fricken’ hurricane!”

Right before we went out to dinner the news about Osama bin Laden broke. So we watched the press conference in the room. When we headed out to get dinner everybody was all abuzz about it. I saw more than one person running around wearing an American flag like a cape.

We wandered around some more after dinner and got a drink at a weird bar and listened to the Osama conspiracy theories begin. Then went back to the hotel. It was very nice to sleep in a bed.

The next day we went and had a very heavy, very greasy breakfast. Then we took a ride on one of those “undersea” tour boats. The boat was all made up to look like a submarine, but really the whole thing was just like the “submarine” ride at Disneyland. The boat doesn’t actually go under water, it just has a deep hull with windows so that you can look out. Mike and I were the only passengers on the thing, so the tour guide guy just sat with us rather than using the speaker system. It was very cool to be able to see the fish and kelp up close and I got a better idea of what I had been seeing under my kayak. When the boat stopped the fish would swim right up to the windows. See, the boat shoots out fish food and the fish know it, so they just wait there like hungry cats.

Then took place a lengthy semantic argument about what exactly constitutes a “submarine”. I was trying to make the point that the boat we were on was not actually a submarine because it did not have the ability to submerge and then come back up again. I also made the point that ALL boats are capable of submerging, and that that is called “sinking” and that it didn’t matter how much a boat looks like a submarine, because that does not make it a submarine.

Then we wandered around Avalon some more. To kill time we took a long walk out to the Catalina Botanical Gardens (because I love Botanical Gardens!) about two miles outside of town, but they were closed. So we just turned around and walked back.

Then we packed up and boarded the ferry back to San Pedro. As we left the island we could see the plume of smoke from a fire that broke out earlier that day on the backside of the island (I swear we had nothing to do with it). Up on the open deck of the ferry a huge wave blew over the side and hit me, completely soaking me. I think it was the ocean’s way of trying to kill me one last time.

And that, pretty much, was our trip and my first brush with outdoorsyness.

I have to say, there is a reason why our ancient ancestors invented the Hyatt. I’m just saying.

However, no I have all this awesome backpacking gear! So stay tuned for more adventures that I am shamefully under-prepared for.

And seriously, if you want to come next time, just shoot me an email. We would love guests on the show!


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