Well, Mike finally got to see the little piece of my heart I left on Catalina Island – my favorite place in the whole world. If I was evil and named Voldemort, it would definitely be one of my horcruxes. So not only did Mike get to see this fantastic setting for just about every story I ever tell, we also got to do just about everything that we really really wanted to do (but didn’t get our hopes up for due to Mr.E)! Well, everything except take a helicopter ride! Man I want to do that so BAAAAD. We’ll just have to keep going back until it happens and I won’t complain about that 
OH OH and I FINALLY saw a BLUE WHALE!! At least that’s what my friend Kara said it was, and she’s a whale biologist, so I believer her He/she was a little blue whale and as cute as a whale’s back and flukes can be zooming by on the ferry! So here’s how the trip went:
Long Beach – 3 nights. Was supposed to hang with Kat (longtime college buddy) but her leaking car couldn’t limp the trip so we were on our own. She owes us a trip to Atlanta now 
. Took Mike and E to the Yard House where the Tole Mour tallship crew used to take me on occasion, and is also well visited by aquarium folk. I wasn’t too excited about it, but then I realized that’s b/c when I used to go there I was poor and uninterested in beer. Now that I’ve lived in Oregon, home of many delicious microbrews, I can officially call myself not only a beer lover but a severely stuck up beer snob. The Yard House had BLACK BUTTE PORTER!!! yum. Also key to loving the YH is being able to afford something that costs more than $5 to eat. Working at a kid’s camp does leave one destitute in some ways (but not in others I might add). As a special treat, when we left the YH, we saw that the Tole Mour had returned to dock and my dear friend Captain Snark was calling out orders to his new crew. I was sad to learn that he wasn’t able to go to the reunion since he was (no surprise here) working. Sounds like he’s working too hard 
That is one dedicated guy. If there are any single ocean loving sailor girls out there…this guy is your dream man. I hope he can find a way to eventually squeeze a significant other into his life next to all of his largest tallship on the west coast captaining and teaching of thousands of kids the art of sailing and loving the ocean. Big hugs Snark.
The Disaster – The night before going to the island we hung out with Craig and Czul at Czul’s parent’s house in Redondo. As is often the case while traveling with young children, parental distraction was high, and instead of going to dinner we went to the emergency room with E’s first boo boo. I only call it that, b/c that is what it miraculously ended up being… at the time it was total disaster and everyone in our family cried hard and felt awful. Dear friends that they are, C-squared accompanied us to the hospital for moral support. Evan was playing on the exam room table by the time the doc got in and he took one look in our direction and declared us worse off. Thank you thank you Neptune, baby Jesus, Mother Earth, Odin, Life Force (insert your god or power of choice here). Now he’s doing fine, not even a scar… though we are still recovering from some heckling at camp and threats to call child services.
Toyon CIMI reunion – Was wonderful to see many old friends but also frustrating to be tied down at times with Evan, who sorely needed adequate napping time and an early bedtime (and was refusing to sleep by himself in the portable bed we brought). So though I got to see my friends, I had really no time to visit with them much b/c when we weren’t taking care of Evan, we were doing stuff. For those of you unfamiliar with Toyon, here’s a link, with a good picture of camp.
Diving – Mike and I both got to trade off boat diving, he went to “the crane” and experienced the kelp forest for the first time (and declared it as cool as I described) and I got to go to Ship Rock, an incredible dive on the west end of the island. Mike also got to do a night dive with Craig and play with an octopus for the first time! We even got to dive together in the bay (saw a giant pipe fish!) because one alumna’s mom offered to babysit for us! I was shocked that someone would be willing to give up their short time to take care of a stranger’s baby, but she was so eager…her daughter said it made her weekend! She was so sweet and we found her dancing with Evan on the dive deck upon our return from the water.
Hiking – On our last day I took Mike and Evan on the canyon loop, a hike out and back from Toyon. I was really chomping at the bit to see any evidence of the big fire of 2007. Much to my joy, the island has recovered quite well! Even the endangered ironwoods were growing back! As a special treat we got to see quite a few bison, which I almost never saw on that hike the hundreds of times I did it with kids when I worked there. The biggest surprise was the giant metal grid erected across the base of the canyon to prevent flash flood damage from debris coming down after big storms. The residents in camp were joking about starting a new Jurassic Park back there; it really did look like it was keeping dinosaurs out (oh the fun I would have had with that one and the elementary schoolers….kids will believe anything you tell them – can’t you see me rubbing my hands together…heh heh). Anywho…to all of you guys that went, it was soooo good to see you even if we didn’t get to hang/chat/catch up as much as I would’ve liked! A big ginormous thank you to Buttercup, Sasha, Mish and all the other planners…it was wonderful…thanks so much. And also a huge thank you to Katie and Dave for driving us to Avalon and meeting us for dinner at Mr. Ning’s! Wish there was more time Oh and please someone tell MJ thanks for taking the divers out on the Disco! What a treat!!
Avalon - We spent two days in town and I felt weird being a tourist and not an islander. We found a great little hotel off the beaten path, the El Terrado Terrace, if anyone ever wants to stay there, great rooms, great service, close to the main drag, but not a great view from the balcony (someone’s dirty yard filled with cat food cans??). It was comparatively cheap since we got a buy one night, get one half-off deal. Our main goal for town was diving the dive park at the Casino which we got to do twice! I found a babysitter through the community church and she took care of Evan while we spent the afternoon exploring the park. I even saw some stuff I’d never seen before. The highlights: the Jacques Cousteau plaque, lots of eels, shrimp hiding in a cave, sheep head sparring, feeding an abalone that yanked a piece of kelp right out of my hand, a giant kelp fish harassing the senorita fish to be cleaned, and of course tons of Garibaldi.
It was a great trip, but by the end of the week we were definitely ready to be home. A month of rocking Evan to sleep with bad ears put us at a disadvantage with him sleeping well for the trip and half-way through he was in bed with us demanding his pacifier every five minutes. Needless to say he was driving us nuts, so when we got home he was in for a shock. It was to the crib (aka baby jail) for him. Poor guy, he was all into having us cater to his every little whimper all night long for a week Not so much anymore champ! Now we just have to survive our short trip to New York to visit Mike while he’s there for the UN. Very excited for that, since I have never seen that part of the country! Will post on that next week!
