We are freshly back from a long weekend trip to Catalina and I am still brimming with excitement and a reinvigorated lust for adventure.   I just love taking weekend jaunts, 2 or 3 night adventures, with the family.  After 20 years in LA LA land, I can safely say that my favorite thing about LA is not the city itself but its prime location right in the middle of coastal Southern California.

There are so many different types of adventures using anywhere in LA as a jumping off point that it boggles the mind.   Want to visit a close facsimile of the moon that is also the hottest place in America?  The closest entrance to Death Valley National Park is less than three hours away.   Interested in a ski vacation or in learning to snowboard?   You are in luck, Big Bear Mountain (among other local mountains) is two hours from downtown LA.   Want the best Asian food in the world outside of Asia?  Pick almost any neighborhood in town.  Want to get out of the country for the weekend?  Find yourself in Mexico enjoying the food, culture and hospitality of Baja California in less than three hours.   Looking to walk in the oldest forest groves in the world?  Sequoia National Park and the largest tree on the planet are less than four hours away.   Want to go a bit further to see the most beautiful valley (place?) in the world?  Yosemite beckons.  Interested in visiting an island that evokes the feel of a Mediterranean seaport village while maintaining 70 degree temperatures year round?   Well, you can do what we did this past weekend and take an hour long boat ride out to Santa Catalina Island.

When I first moved to Southern California, there was no question that I would live at the beach.   I was surprised upon arriving that not everyone thought this way, and that many people come all the way out from the east coast just to stop 5 or 10 miles shy of the Pacific.  This was not going to be my problem, and after a couple of years in Santa Monica, I’ve lived the rest of my time in California in Venice Beach.   That said, my real fascination isn’t with the beach per se, but with flowing water and the ocean itself.   So, when I first learned that there was a sparsely populated island off of the California coast with a quaint little harbor and town and its own lobster season, I was sold.

Catalina has two main ports of call accessible from the mainland, the town of Avalon and the isthmus of Two Harbors.   Two Harbors is really a one horse town that has just one restaurant, one general store and a campground.  Its also the jumping off point to more remote areas of the island, including the secluded campsite Little Harbor on the far side facing the open ocean.   Avalon is where the majority of the island’s three thousand residents live and it features scores of hotels, restaurants and fun vacationy activities.  In my 20’s and 30’s, I was more of a Two Harbors kind of guy, preferring remote island adventures to the more touristy charms of Avalon.  Now that I am a boring family man though, Avalon’s golf cart only roads are a bit more my speed, filled as they are with good restaurants, picturesque views and old Victorian style homes and hotels.

One of the nice things about short jaunts is that its easier to splurge a bit on expenses without feeling particularly guilty about it.  We ended up renting a suite with a balcony overlooking the harbor in Avalon Bay in what we ultimately concluded was the perfect location.  If we had been staying for a week or more, I wouldn’t have considered this place, but since we were just spending two nights, why not do it right?   I realized that since I had always gone camping when I had come for overnight trips to Catalina, that this would be my first time staying indoors on the island.  It turned out to be pretty special.   As we settled into our room and lounged on the balcony, a full moon with a distinctly orange hue began to rise over the boats in the harbor, perfectly framed by the surrounding bay.

Tania and I agreed that it was one of the more stunningly beautiful things we had ever seen.   It really was spectacular, but in retrospect what made it truly great was that we had no idea it was coming.  We hadn’t remembered that it was a full moon that night.  It was also our first night in town, so we didn’t know that in the late fall the moon rises in such a postcard-like fashion over the water in the harbor.  The experience seemed gift-wrapped for us, because everything about it was new and untouched by our expectations.  These moments of discovery in fresh surroundings are what I love about travel.   And because Los Angeles is so perfectly located in the middle of so many varied adventures and inspiring jaunts, the promise of discovery is what I love about LA too.