Robbie and I like to celebrate our meaningful anniversaries each year, including the anniversary of our first date, the anniversary of our engagement, and of course our wedding anniversary. It turns out that the anniversary of our first date and our engagement fall on the same day, just 1 year apart. Our first date was August 22, 2008, and the day Robbie proposed was August 22, 2009. This year, August 22nd landed on a Saturday, so we thought it would be fun to have a Southern California adventure! We didn't want to do anything huge, but just a weekend getaway. For our honeymoon back in 2010, we went to Catalina Island, and we decided to mark our first date/engagement anniversary there, too! A few weeks back, we got our Ferry tickets, and we were pretty much set to go! We also noticed that the Anaheim Angels were playing a home game that weekend against the red-hot Blue Jays, so we got tickets for Friday's game, the night before our visit to Catalina Island.
One of the best things about living in Southern California is the proximity we have to major league sports. We are less than 2 hours away from 3 baseball teams, so it allows us to go to games more easily on Friday nights. Anaheim is about 45 minutes away from Temecula, so it was an easy drive after work, even with the traffic (most of the traffic was going opposite of us). We stayed in a hotel that night as we were due out on the ferry early the next morning, so we checked into our hotel before the game, and walked over to the stadium from there, making it to our seats as the top half of the first inning was still happening. It was our second time being at Angel Stadium, my second time seeing the Blue Jays, and our fifth live game of the season. I was very excited to see the bats of Blue Jays' Jose Bautista and newly acquired Troy Tulowitzski, and also the Angels' Mike Trout. The Angels got beat up that game, losing 9-2. During this game, we saw our first live homerun of the season as well!
Early the next morning, we got up to catch our 9am ferry over to Catalina Island. Our ferry was due out of the Port of Los Angeles, which happened to be one of the locations on The Amazing Race Season 26 finale episode that we just finished watching a couple weeks before! Pretty cool!
The ferry ride took about an hour and 10 minutes, which went pretty quick. We had seats inside the boat, but spent about half of it on the deck looking at the expanse of the Pacific Ocean while letting the wind whip through our hair. It was chilly, but well worth it to be out there!
We arrived on Catalina Island shortly after 10am, and we had the whole day to do whatever we wanted. We did have something scheduled at noon, but other than that, the day was ours!
Our first stop was a spontaneous tour of the Catalina Casino. The casino anchors the north end of the Island, and it isn't what we would normally think a 'casino' to be. The word casino means 'entertainment' in Italian, so that's what it's purpose was, and still is today.
The casino, which was built in 1929, has 2 levels, the first is a theater, and the second is the world's largest circular wood-floored ballroom. The first level theater features beautiful art deco murals along each wall and above the stage. The first uses of the theater were for live bands and some of the first talking movies that were made. In front of the stage is a pipe organ that is currently played for an hour each night with amazing acoustics throughout! Also, the theater still shows a new release movie every week! We were able to watch a short video of the history of the casino, which ultimately made Catalina Island what it is today.
We then made our way up the ramps to the second level ballroom. When I walked in, I felt like I was transported back to a 1950's movie, with couples wearing ball gowns and black ties, and waltzing the night away! The ceiling is adorned with exquisite hand-painted murals and light fixtures that can change color to fit the needs of the event. There is a stage at one side of the floor, and the seating is meant to surround the floor along the perimeter. The ballroom, like the theater, is still in use today, and you can rent out the ballroom at, what I am assuming is, a pretty penny. I asked what the going rate is to rent, and the guide had no idea. It all depends on the event, and what is needed for it. The views out the windows of the 2nd level were stunning also!
After the Casino tour, we headed to our 12pm scheduled activity, a Sea Trek Tour! The Sea Trek Tour is basically an opportunity to walk on the ocean floor and see all the marine life swimming beneath!! I was pretty pumped! We arrived a little late due to some bad directions, but we were soon in our wetsuits and headed down to the water after some instruction! The dock to submerge us in the water was a good distance out from shore, as we were going down about 20 feet to the bottom! All we needed was a wetsuit, and when we got to the dock, we were secured with a 70lb. astronaut helmet that just sat on our shoulders. The helmet had tubes attached to it that extended up to the dock, and apparently we had 3x the amount of oxygen than we normally would need! I put a lot of trust into our guide! Robbie descended the ladder first, and I wasn't far behind. Descending the ladder was very interesting. I got to a rung where half the helmet was submerged and half was not, and the guide was right....no water got into the helmet even though it was just resting on my shoulders! Crazy! It didn't take long before I was walking the ocean floor! They had a ropes course set up in a square, and we were instructed to hang onto that the whole time and just walk around it and have a blast! The guide said that once we got comfortable, we could jump around and do some tricks. At the very end, I jumped up and down a few times. Everything was in slow motion, so it was a very different feeling. It was so cool to walk among the sea life! The visibility was excellent, and we could see many different kinds of fish and coral. Robbie said that right as he got to the ocean floor, he looked, and there was a fish staring him right in the face! We weren't far enough out to see any big sea creatures, but our ocean walk was a unique perspective of life beneath the waves!! I will never forget this experience!! The Sea Trek Tour was about 10 minutes north of the Casino on Descanso Beach, so we took a complimentary beach shuttle back to the main town of Avalon. It was a fun open-air ride that was much needed to cool us off! :)
After our Sea Trek, we had lunch overlooking the main drag of the island, and the ocean beyond that! It was nice to relax for a moment and take in the life happening around us. After lunch, we walked towards the pier and rented a pedal boat. We had an hour-long rental, and we pedaled throughout the marina of the island, weaving in and out of the beautiful yachts and boats that we anchored there. We also were challenged by avoiding all the boat traffic that was coming in to dock. It was a lot of fun to see Catalina Island from a new perspective!
Once we were finished with the pedal boat, we made a midday ice cream stop, getting the treats from a cute little confectionary shop on one of the street corners.
Our last activity of the day was mini-golfing. On our first trip to Catalina, we mini-golfed, so we decided to make it a staple whenever we come back. It was fun to putt the ball around each green. We started keeping score, but then decided to just play for fun after the 3rd or 4th hole.
We purchased our ferry tickets to and from Catalina Island for the same day, so unfortunately after mini-golfing, it was time to leave, but not before popping into a cantina to cool off with a refreshing Pina Colada!
On the ferry ride back, we were able to watch the sun set, and Robbie and I reminisced about our time together throughout our relationship. We definitely won't wait another 5 years to go back to Avalon, and we discussed making Catalina Island a yearly adventure, around the same time each year! It's nice to know that we can successfully do Catalina Island in a day! It made Sunday a nice day to recuperate!
"Adventure is worthwhile" - Aesop
