Late Night with a Local

Our last night in Avalon had us dressed up and going to dinner at a fancy restaurant. I even utilized our room's iron and ironed my shirt and pants. Corrie wore a dress, and out we went, feeling completely overdressed for what amounted to a stroll through Pismo Beach. After eating, we returned to the hotel so Corrie could change into a more comfortable-but still nice outfit, and we hit a local watering hole for cocktails.

We did our best to find the places where we totally stood out and everybody else knew each other, you know, the local's hangouts. We like to see how life on the island (or anyplace, really) churns.

We ended up meeting a young man roughly our age who was visiting his younger brother for his high school commencement (they had different fathers). The young former local said that he grew up split between Florida and Catalina, knows just about everyone on the island, and lives currently in Huntington Beach.

After we started talking, he started buying all the rounds, and the night went on. He eventually offered to give Corrie and I a late night tour on his family's golf-cart. We enthusiastically jumped at the opportunity. In hindsight, taking a tour on a golf-cart with a local who kept referring to himself as "someone on the island" after last call might not have been the best idea, but that's how we roll, and that's how you get to experience the realities of people's limited worlds.

I'm not trying to say that "people's limited worlds" is a bad thing, because
nearly every single person on earth has a limited world. Mine is Long Beach, the 405, and Costa Mesa. Corrie, with her new job close to mine, is pretty much the same.

In any case, this gentleman took us around to spots and overlooks we wouldn't have been able to get to ourselves, and even offered to take us to the real interior, where most full-time residents of Catalina can't even get to (see, he was somebody on the island). We would have loved to have taken advantage of that, but our ferry was returning the next day, and a long uninterrupted stretch of work got in the way.

He dropped us off at the St. Lauren around 4, and we caught some shut-eye before having to check out at 11. I realized that, sadly, those types of late night adventures take a certain toll on my old body. Since our ferry didn't leave until nearly four, and our hotel wouldn't hold onto our stuff, and even if they would hold onto it we didn't really feel like doing much, we ended up st sleeping the hours away on the beach.

My last view before I rolled over and really got some sleep is shown below. It was cloudy on our last day, but beautiful our other days.



Can you see me, with my frizzy blond locks, slumped in a diner's booth slowly eating biscuits and gravy, propped by my bag, wearing sunglasses? Definitely nap time ensued.