LA and Santa Catalina Island

The scenery on the last few days riding south to the sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles was as stunning as it has been for, well, a long long time now. The riding has generally been quite easy lately as the road tended to stick close to the endless beaches.

We spent a relaxing three days on Santa Catalina Island, a real gem of an island. There are very few cars on the island, residents and tourists use golf carts and a selection of electric cars, trucks, and tricycles to get around. Architecturally the island displays a Spanish presence. The island is well known for its Casino, which is actually not a casino at all but a movie theatre and ball room built in 1932 and financed by the patriarch of Chigaco's first family of chewing gum, the Wrigleys. Wrigley built a concrete mausoleum for himself which was just up from where we camped at the edge of the town of Avalon. The Wrigleys helped to preserve much of the island's wilderness and today almost 90% of the island is owned by the Catalina Island Conservancy as a nature preserve. There were big fish visible in the waters off the main town of Avalon and someone even caught a tuna off the ferry dock as we strolled past (which a large pelican then tried to steal and eat!). I highly recommend a visit to Catalina Island (Adey, thanks for recommending the Mexican place for happy hour!).

Before LA we visited the historic mission in Santa Barbara and stayed at a number of beautiful beach-side state campgrounds along the way.

We are now in San Diego for a few days before heading across the border into Baja Mexico. We now plan on travelling down to La Paz and will then take a ferry over to Mazatlan and likely continue south from there.