Adventure #25 - Day Five - Ventura to Catalina Island, CA

Adventure #25 - Road Trip to LA and Martin Wheeler Systema Seminar
Planned By - Both Heather and Marty

DAY FIVE - From Ventura to Catalina Island, CA

Description:  Wherein Heather and Marty continue their VERY LONG road trip to LA (it takes 6 hours to drive LA, they are going to do it in 5 days!)  Leaving their spacious RV in near Ventura, they head towards San Pedro to catch a boat to Catalina Island for a night's stay.

 

(Marty's Report):

Ok, so out of the farm, saying goodbye to Toni the horse, who for some reason liked my knees (I’m guessing it was the salt).  He seemed eager to see us, coming across the paddock to say hi, and then chuffed that we were leaving so soon.  The two dogs with their head nets tried blocking the way out the gate, but Heather wooed them away, and we left.  We got high marks, again, from the hostess for cleaning the place so thoroughly, though since it feels like someone’s home, it would feel rude to not do that.  We also gave her high marks.

We took Hwy 101 down into LA, through mountainous coastal regions and towns that really started looking like LA.  I had wanted to finish our path down Hwy 1, but neither of us caught that until deep into LA.  C’est la vie.  We listened a bit more to “The Essential Dogen” (pronounced by the narrator as DOE-gin, with an elongation of the “oe”—I’ll never be able to hear the name again except as that), but it’s such potent and dense writing that you quickly overdose.  Then we listened to more music, and cruised through the mostly uncluttered LA highways.

I love LA.   Every time I come down here, after my two years at UCLA 20 years ago, I fall for it more and more deeply.  There’s consistently, in my experience, a deeply relaxed quality, no matter where I’ve gone in the region.  It’s like the whole area moves around on a base coated with very fine, perfectly round grains.  It doesn’t at all feel unstable or unrooted, just free moving.  It shouldn’t feel this way, of course, given the problems with traffic, population, and just its incredible complexity.  But it does to me, and there’s no way around it.  Some part of me relaxes here in a way it never does in San Francisco.  Thankfully, I not so in love that I can’t be away from it, as if it were a beloved.  But it’s noticeable.

We passed through Calabassas, where the famous Topanga Canyon (and Mullholand Dr., apparently) are, something I never knew.  That’s part of the ongoing charm of LA, I suppose, that when I was here for college, I knew nothing about the region.  I kept my head down, went out to the beach once in a while, downtown once, up to Simi Valley with Mike for climbing, but never explored the area.  I didn’t have a car, but more so, I was so overwhelmed that just staying close to home, and doing my school work to get out of there was a big enough project.

But coming back as an adult (adult-er), I get to see the whole region, which I’ve done in the past several years starting with my yearlong with Dan Siegel.  Then the trip with Heather last year, to Las Vegas, then through the desert to LA, and now down the coast to LA.  It’s a great exposure to such a complex region, with so much nuance and beauty I never guessed when it was written off as, “you know, LA.”



So we rolled into San Pedro, and had a couple hours before our boat left for Catalina Island at 3p.  We walked along the waterfront along the Long Beach Harbor, on the SP side, and visited a number of, basically, the same down beat beach knick knack shops.  One place had a mix of that stuff, and Santeria paraphernalia, and it had the most uncomfortable vibe on that walk.  There was a Latina woman in the corner, shadowed, and the energy of the place felt too close and thick.  I’ve never liked the feel of these more primitive religions, or their magical applications.  I remember crossing the border back into Benin, and there being a merchant selling dog heads and animal parts, for ceremonies or magic of some kind.  It doesn’t feel clean or pure-spirited, but rather based around power and manipulation.  We left, both feeling the discomfort.  I guess you could argue it’s the discomfort of culture clash, but it feels deeper than that, energetic.

From there, we ran some errands (Dramamine, luggage tags, and an attempt at a luggage strap, at Target), all in San Pedro.  It’s a town that definitely feels rougher than Ventura, and the workers in the two stores had an immediate brusqueness when approached, as if the contact itself was chaffing and unwelcomed.  I don’t know if it was my demographic (white, male, privileged), or something more about the town itself, but when I observed other workers from afar, they seemed to carry themselves with that kind of energetic toughness.

Two Harbors

We made it to the boat on time, and spent an hour and a half on the top deck, wind and sun burned, arriving at Two Harbors first, then east along the island to Avalon.  Avalon is the main population center;  out of 4000 permanent residents, 3700 live here.  (Another ¾ million visitors come here each year.)  It has a 100 year history of development as a tourist destination, most prominently by William Wrigley in the 1920’s (the gum magnate).  It’s now about a square mile, with a squeaky clean waterfront walk, full of restaurants and beach shops.  Like the other towns we’ve been to, it’s quiet, off season, though it apparently gets mobbed in summer (I saw a picture of the little beach swarmed with humanity).

We schlepped our bags off the boat and the few blocks to the Seacrest Inn.  Heather had called it a hotel, so I was expecting some multi-storied concrete pink building off the main drag.  But instead, it was a cute two-story building (they’re all low rise buildings here) a block away from the waterfront walk, for all of $95 a night.  Juan showed up on a moped after we left a message, a sweet 30s-something man who checked us in and even carried a couple of our bags to the room.  Then we settled our stuff, gawked at the Jacuzzi, and went out to find dinner.

The waterfront looked a bit like a bourgeois, stationary Burning Man, lit up with its various colored lights and storefront emanations.  But different in that it was quiet, without interminable rave music.  So points to Avalon for that.

Dinner at the meh Galleon, then a spot of gelato at the corner place, all windows and doors open to the ocean air, like we were in the Mediterranean.  Visitors here tend to be white, late middle age, though some diversity of black and Asian folk.  A lot of low-key money is represented here, because it’s not cheap getting out here, nor cheap living here.  Heather did some research and the high water users here pay 18 times the mainland rate, and houses have the buttload of money feel (there’s no slummy houses here).  There’s a couple boats here that probably cost more then I’d made in my whole life.  But there’s not that horrific suffocating feeling of stratified money, carrying a complex chutney of defensiveness, entitlement, and implied violence.

We went back to the hotel afterwards and had a bath… which was a bath because we couldn’t figure out how to make the Jacuzzi jets work.  I fell into a doze there, and must have been wiped out because I basically slept there, and then stumbling into bed, the whole night through.  The symphony of golf carts, passing outside our window, lulled me to sleep.


(Heather's Report):

I dragged myself out of bed, noting that I was kinda wishing I was home and sort of wishing I had my blankey.  Sigh.  But I did noticed that I did feel more relaxed in terms of travel despite maybe being a little road weary.  After this last night in AirBnBs, I realized that I really don’t like hotels.  They are so sterile and stressful.  It’s no wonder I don’t really like “vacations”.  I’m not like Marty in that I feel like is just the same across the board and no “vacating” is necessary (although I think I sort of agree with him), but I also find “vacations” very stressful and not very relaxing and I usually dread going back to work.  Maybe that’s true for most people?  I don’t know.  In any case, I got up a bit earlier than I wanted to so I could cook the yummy fresh duck eggs and have breakfast.  Not a huge fan of breakfast in general, but I do note a high protein breakfast can keep me going, although often to the point that I miss lunch because it holds me so well.  I went with Marty to say goodbye to Tony the Horse and off we went, finding coffee along the way.

The huge bridge right over our berth.

 We apparently missed the rest of Highway 1 but I was okay with that because I get anxious around timing logistics and I didn't want to miss the boat ride over to Catalina Island especially since we had hotel reservation for tonight.  But we made it there in good time, watching the building of LA start.  This place is soooo huge.  I mean, I feel like if you just ignored the rest of the world, you'd feel like you lived on Coruscant from Star Wars (the entire planet is one city).  It just keeps going and going and going....  Anyway, we rolled into the dock area and went wandering around, including a jaunt to the nearest Rite Aid to pick up the all important drammamine (both Marty and I remember a horrible whale "watching" trip where we both got quite nauseous on the boat and threw up over the side) and we needed luggage tags in case we had to check bags.

Because Love Wins!

Before that we wandered around the weird little dock stores, all kitschy stuff and mostly closed.  We've run into a lot of "Closed" on this trip being fairly off season, I think.  But we popped into a couple with all the usual knickknacks, usual tourist trappings, sea creatures of the dried sort, shells, etc etc.  We wandered into one of those stores that has all the bits of every.... uhm, I am not sure what to call it... religions, spiritualities, occult stuff.  Crystals, angels, fortune telling stuff, incense, jewelry, etc etc.  You totally know the kind and you totally know the smell.  These stores all smell the same.  That overwhelming mix of nasty synthetic incense oils and sticks to patchouli to whatever else crap they spray onto or incorporate into things.  Yuck.  And the energy in these places is always disjointed and unpleasant.  Marty wondered why this was so as he felt it too.  I made the point that these kinds of stores offer ALL different things for all different beliefs with no grounding or backup.  I've been in stores dedicated entirely to Wicca or just spirituality oriented herbalism and they have very different feels, more grounded in its own thing.  So, we left and wandered off, musing about this phenomenon.

Marty's looking grizzled and cute!

After snoozing.

We made our way to our boat's berth and boarded without issue.  We didn't have to check luggage since apparently they had many seats open.  So we hauled ourselves to the top and open deck and settled in.  I watched for a little while, looking for any form of cetaceans but didn't see anything.  Eventually, as with most forms of travel where I don't have to drive and I don't have to be awake for someone else driving, and there's that rhythmic motion (somewhat) and I napped for about half the way over, about an hour to Two Harbors and another 30 minutes to Avalon, the main "port".  I got sprayed in the face a couple of times as the boat zipped along which would rouse me a little but then I'd nod off again.

Approaching Avalon.

Finally, after our trip, we pulled into Avalon and disembarked.  We were immediately struck by how similar it felt and also looked, to Dahab, Egypt and parts of Hawaii.  We checked into our hotel, the cute Seacrest Inn, which ended up being more of a large historical house broken up into rooms.  Rather neat.  There was a huge two person whirlpool tub that we eyed with half envy, half guilt (on my end, especially after learning that the island has no natural fresh water sources and is considered to be in an extreme/serious drought condition).  Maybe I will sin later though.  We left and wandered the cute street front along the water to find dinner.

Avalon's main street.

Everything is very expensive on the island, which makes sense as everything is shipped in.  They don't have any local agriculture or livestock or water that we know of.  And if you think about that, then this place really shouldn't even exist.  But of course, in this modern day, we can ship out goods, food and whatnot to wherever.  So pretty much everything was expensive for dinner, especially meats and fruits.  Well, and dairy and everything else.  But what the hell, I had a prime rib.  I don't eat meat that often these days (red meat, or really much of anything) although I've been eating a lot of fish on this trip.  I'm probably all mercury poisoned or something.  But the prime rib was very good ("Not for the cow!" Marty says) and we took a photo of the little rubber duck the hotel leaves for its guests to take with them to keep but also to take photos of during their vacation.  So here's our duck enjoying some prime rib at The Galleon restaurant.

Our ducky enjoys some horseradish sauce.

Then we did get some ice cream and wandered back to the hotel and took that sinful bath.  We both fit in there side by side (wow) although not all that long enough for our tall bodies but still.  We couldn't figure out to get the jets to work in the whirlpool and I wasn't going to call the lovely hotel assistant to show him our sinning ways just to get the jets on.  So we just soaked.  I ended up snoozing a bit but eventually woke up with my heart pounding and had to get out.  Too hot!  Marty stayed in to continue the soaking and napping process while I worked on the computer in bed, every now and then calling out to him to make sure he was still alive.  Then eventually we both went to bed.

The USS Battleship Iowa that we saw going out of San Pedro Harbor.