Oh, Nothing Much: 30th Birthday on Catalina

There was one little addendum to our travels.

My birthday happened to be just a couple of days after we got back from road trip, and since I was still feeling the wanderlust, I decided I want to make one more small trip and go to Catalina Island.

Originally, we’d thought to keep the camping going and get a site on the island. That was not to be. The day we got back to San Diego – from where we’d started our trip – Greg got a call and found out that he’d have to leave for an interview on the East Coast the next day. The next morning we hightailed it back to LA, he shaved off his road-beard, unpacked, repacked, and got on a plane. To say he was exhausted when he got back is an understatement, so we slashed the camping plans in favor of a daytrip.

It was a gorgeous day and Marc and his boy came out in the afternoon to meet up with us. We spent the afternoon wandering around Avalon, Catalina’s only city. Avalon is very cute, but it is very small, and as with many small towns there isn’t really much going on there. It’s a resort town, so it’s really more about getting to do all the recreational vacation activities people like to do. I feel a little bad because by the time Marc got there, we didn’t really have much time to get in any more exciting activities, but I was so happy to have him there! Mind you, I hadn’t seen any of my friends other than Greg for about a month, and I was very happy to get some tacos and beers in the sunshine with one of my besties.

I would, however, have enjoyed my tacos and beers more if it hadn’t been for the cheesy-ass music. They seem to love bad cover bands on Santa Catalina Island, because they were everywhere we went. They were there drowning out our conversation at lunch, and then in the evening there was an 80’s cover band wailing on stage in the middle of town. Actually, I have to say, that band was gloriously bad. Sure, they were somewhat discordant, but they worked their big hair, their neon colors, and their shoulder pads and jumped wildly about the stage with those wild—albeit somewhat uncoordinated -- 80’s dance moves.

My favorite part of the day though, was that I finally got to go kayaking! I’d been wanting to go kayaking during the entire road trip and the weather would not cooperate. On that day, the skies gave me a perfect gift of beautiful weather. When Greg and I arrived on the island in the morning, we immediately went to the rental place and headed out on the water for a couple of hours. We were even visits by seal who swam right in front of the kayak. It was a fantastic birthday morning!

I did end up with drenched shorts – why I didn’t take them off and just wear my swimsuit is beyond me – and ended up looking rather ridiculous for the rest of the day in various makeshift outfit; however, the morning was perfect.