Santa Catalina Island | Saying nothing in particular

The island of Santa Catalina is also famous for something it lacks. Something most Americans think is a necessity. Something they simply can’t do without. Can you guess what it is?

Cars! Islanders and tourists get around on electric powered golf carts. There are a few gas powered vehicles but not many.

But unless you live on one of the hills, walking is the best way to see the town’s many eclectic shops and restaurants.

A peek into the window. The store opened and closed on “island time” (whenever the owner felt like it and he wasn’t feeling it when we were there)

As I mentioned before, the island has long attracted sport fisherman, primarily those hoping to hook a blue fin tuna.

Front entrance to the Tuna Club of Avalon, America’s oldest fishing club (circa 1898) whose members have included three presidents, Winston Churchill, Cecil B. Demille, Charlie Chaplin and Bing Crosby and …

Zane Grey, considered the Father of the Western genre

Before they get established, most writers have a “day job” which supports them. Grey’s day job was, well, interesting for a man who once said “Realism is death to me. I cannot stand life as it is” and described his black spell as “a hyena lying in ambush.”

He was a … dentist. A dentist who really really liked to fish. And, in order to spend more time at sea, toward the end of his life Grey built a getaway on the Island.

Zane Grey’s getaway on top of the hill. Now it’s a swanky hotel.

Here are a couple of random shots.

On a recent trip to the Southern California to visit family, I decided to do something I almost never do: splurge. There’s plenty to splurge on in SoCal but I had never been to Santa Catalina Island.

The island is 26 miles off the coast of Los Angeles, California. Regular folks can get there via high speed catamarans from Newport Beach, Long Beach or Dana Point. Rich folks can take their yachts or private jets, and athletic folk can swim. (Although there are sharks in the channel so I doubt many folks take that route.) Above is the “Casino.” Today you can take tours and see how the super wealthy once partied or … view the nightly showing of a Jim Carrey movie that died at the box office years ago.

The largest town on the island is Avalon (about seven thousand permanent residents). The first thing you’ll notice about this town is the tile work. It’s everywhere, on almost all the buildings.

The island has been inhabited for almost eight hundred years; first by Native Americans and then by otter hunters, smugglers, ranchers and miners until, in 1919, William Wrigley Jr. (of chewing gum fame) decided it would make a great resort. He created the Catalina Clay Products company to provide year round employment for the island’s residents knowing they would be key to the success of the service industry. It was a great idea. Today you can take tours of the tile work or even create your own. You could literally spend a day wandering the town enjoying the tile work.

For a few decades the island served as a playground for celebrities and deep sea fishermen. But eventually it attracted cruise ships and with that … the floodgates were opened. The super wealthy had to find other exclusive and remote playgrounds.