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Old Fashion Romantic Adventure on Santa Catalina Island Publish Date : 1/11/2006 5:02:13 PM Source : Carolyn Proctor
Read Jetsetters Magazine at www.jetsettersmagazine.com To read this entire feature FREE with photos cut and paste this link: www.jetsettersmagazine.com/archive/jetezine/globe02/usa02/CA/catalina/tour/catalina.html Peering down from the gangway of the Catalina Express, I see fat orange Garibaldis, the California State fish, nibbling among the rocks. It’s early-afternoon on a sunny day and we’ve arrived at Avalon, the little town on Santa Catalina Island off the coast of California. Yes, the island of “Twenty-six miles across the sea” fame, the song made famous in 1958 by the Four Preps. But we didn’t swim here with “water wings and my guitar.” We took the Catalina Express, the modern ferry that crosses the water in one hour and five minutes—much easier to visualize than 26 miles. Views of the Long Beach skyline, Queen Mary, freighters, and cruise ships plying the Mexican Riviera are to be had from topside aft, the only outdoor seating. Inside, besides seating, there are tables and restrooms. There’s a full bar with snacks and on the top deck, the Commodore Lounge―a private seating area for 50 people. For just $10 more on the ticket price (plus you get to pre-board) you can recline in leather seats and enjoy a free cocktail and snack. It’s a particularly popular place in the summer, when the ferries are crowded. A taxi takes my husband and I up to the Zane Grey Pueblo Hotel, perched atop a green hillside overlooking the Bay of Avalon. Our handsome driver, Jorge Garcia, is a retired dancer who worked with Jose Greco. “I’ve been on the island since 1991,” he tells us. “I go home to Jalisco in the winter when island tourism slows down.” After checking in we walk down and spend the rest of the afternoon and evening exploring the town of Avalon. The Channel House Restaurant facing the bay, with its paved brick enclosed patio shaded by green umbrellas and an enormous ficus tree, proves perfect for a mid-afternoon lunch. My husband orders a sensible Chinese Chicken salad and a cup of clam chowder; I devour a swordfish burger with fries. Custom tile art welcomes you to Avalon. Crescent Avenue, lined with eye-candy boutiques, is a pedestrian walkway only; no vehicles allowed. Its water fountain and stuccoed benches are dotted with colorful Catalina tiles. Every nook and cranny sprouts pansies, snap dragons, begonias. Hanging bare root baskets are home to fuschias and orchids. Here you can indulge in espresso, ice cream, salt water taffy, shrimp cocktails, waffles, oyster bars, or a cantina that boasts 70 different kinds of tequila. We slurp oysters and beer outdoors on the patio at Armstrong’s Market & Seafood Restaurant. At sunset, we find a table on the outdoor deck at Armstrong’s Fish Market and Seafood Restaurant. We order beer to wash down oysters on the half shell, which we consume under the watchful eye of a seagull, perched to dive for any crumb you might drop into the water. The next morning we take Discovery Tours new off-roading adventure, its Cape Canyon Tour. We meet our Catalina Conservancy guide, Dave, in the Island Plaza, just one block from the waterfront. He hands us each a free bottle of chilled water and introduces us to the open-air, all-terrain 1968 Mercedes Unimog. Originally built for German military as a supply vehicle, this outback-looking vehicle with its jaunty canopy cover holds 12 people. A sign near the check-in window reads, “NOTICE TO PASSENGERS - Road to the interior is unpaved, steep, winding, narrow, bumpy & dusty (as well as scenic).” The big advantage to the Unimog is that it can go on roads in the interior where big tour buses can’t. The open-air Mercedes Unimog takes 12 passengers on a tour of the mountainous interior of Catalina Island. “Part of the Canyon Road is still washed out from the rains,” Dave announces. “We’ll do The Loop instead—my favorite road, actually.” As we leave the plaza, Dave fills us in on some island history and trivia: Discovery Tours is the oldest tour company on the island, dating from 1894 when people traveled by horse-drawn wagon. The City of Avalon covers one square mile and is part of Los Angeles county. There are no home deliveries of mail; everyone has a P.O. box. Catalina Island gets 10 to 15 thousand visitors a day (summer). Six diesel generators provide island electricity. In 1921 Wrigley installed the first one. The Santa Catalina Island Conservancy owns a 42,000-acre private reserve, representing 88% of the island. Narrow winding roads lined with eucalyptus trees snake around steep hillsides. My husband says, “This is a one-gear road.” Dave looks up to where a hawk glides in the sky. “We’ll climb several hundred feet. In the old days the stagecoach took 2 ½ hours to get to the top.” He says the first interior tour “was a day and a half trip to Two Harbors by stagecoach.” We reach Middle Ranch Canyon and the ground slopes gently, covered with grasses and wildflowers in bloom. We’re approaching an American Bald Eagle habitat when we spot the big beasts in a nearby field—buffalo? No. Dave educates us that these are North American bison (bison bison). “To say ‘buffalo’ is to confuse them with the Cape or African Buffalo (Syncerus caffer).” Fourteen head of American bison were brought to Catalina Island by a film company in 1924 for a movie version of The Vanishing American by western author Zane Grey. (Grey lived and wrote many of his books on Catalina Island.) After the film wrapped, the bison were left behind. They did what any animal left to roam a nice place with food and water would do—they multiplied. While the Conservancy has determined the island can support up to 300 head, about 120 are kept on the island today. “How do you tell if the bull will charge?” Dave asks. To read this entire feature FREE with photos cut and paste this link: www.jetsettersmagazine.com/archive/jetezine/globe02/usa02/CA/catalina/tour/catalina.htmll Carolyn Proctor, Jetsetters Magazine Correspondent. Read Jetsetters Magazine at www.jetsettersmagazine.com About the Author Carolyn Proctor, Jetsetters Magazine Correspondent. Join the Travel Writers Network in the logo at www.jetsettersmagazine.com |
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