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.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about other things the island is famous for. Meanwhile, here is super cheesy song about the island.