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Well, good morning, adventures. Good morning. Do you all know that we have been doing some RV travels, but we decided to park Clementine and take a quick trip out to the San Diego area to uh visit my cousin. But on the way there, we decided to pop over to LA for some island fun in the sun. We're actually leaving from St. Louis once again, and it's freezing here. So, we need some warm weather before it gets really cold. Yeah, it's like 40s and raining. I feel like it went straight from summer to winter. But we are going to head to Catalina Island, which is this beautiful island off the coast of LA with tons of natural beauty, insane views. It
seriously just looks like you've been transported to the Mediterranean or something. We are once again taking this trip with our Delta Sky Miles Platinum American Express card. So, we want to give them a huge thanks for partnering with us on this video. But our flight should be taking off any minute. We are going to head to LA, then take a ferry, and finally arrive at Catalina Island. I'm liking this energy. I know. I'm excited. Even though I'm actually very, very tired. I need lots of coffee. But I just love island stuff. It's going to be fun.
You guys might have noticed it's dark outside, and that's because the sun is rising later and later, and I do not like it. Winter is coming, but we're going to circumvent it by flying to LA and going to an island. Welcome to Los Angeles, where the local time is 12:30 p.m. We look forward to seeing you soon. Well, that flight was uh super easy, but uh we immediately hopped into a car and drove directly to the ferry terminal. And now we have a 1-hour ferry to get to
the island. It is going to take place at sunset. So, I think it's going to be very beautiful. I think we'll get some nice glow on the city behind us and a setting sun in front of us. It'll be the perfect arrival to the Is that what you were going to say? We were thinking the same thing. They do have a ramp over there if you want to use it. Oh, okay. I'm too far in, man. Yeah, you're committing now. The ferry is underway and this is already one magical ride, you guys. The sun is setting, casting all these beautiful colors all over the water.
There's birds like skimming on top of it. And we passed by this ship that looked just like the Titanic, but it's technically bigger than the Titanic. It's pretty cool. Do ghost tours there, you guys. We did the Crescent Hotel. Next year we'll come and we will do that ship. Well, we have officially arrived to Catalina Island. Unfortunately, night has completely fallen now, but it's really cool because it is all very bright and lit up and we cannot wait to see it in the daytime.
Well, hello there adventurers. We have officially made it to Catalina Island. This actually is the city of Avalon. It is one of two cities here on the island and it has 90% of the population. What is the population, you ask? It's about 4,000 people. 90% of them live right here. From here, you can kind of get your first sense of the island. So, it's definitely got a Mediterranean feel. No doubt about that. The town of Avalon is built into the hillsides over here, which are still kind of green, but you can see it's not that big. There's really not all that much development. There's a lot of natural beauty on this island.
We just took a little stroll out to the pier that goes right out to the middle of the bay and it is super lovely. It's actually called the pleasure pier. Confirmed. It is quite pleasurable. But whatever you do when you're on this dock, no overhead casting cuz that is probited. That's a fishing term if you guys didn't know that. It is. It's when a fish is just really good at biting and he bites your rod. It's probited. Sorry. That's the best I got. And it was all bad. So, as you can see, this is the entirety of the town. You cannot drive a car here. So, as a tourist, you have three
options. You can walk, you can bike, or you can get an adorable golf cart. A golf cart. Golf cart should take you all over the island. Yeah, it's actually pretty awesome. They give you one of these just for free right when you get off of the ferry. It's just standard issue, right? Standard issue. Yeah. No, but some uh vacation rentals here will give you a golf cart with your rental. Ours did not. But luckily, there are several places where you can rent them, which is what we have done.
Are we keeping the golf cart thing or do we need to redo that? The golf cart. I think I like that. Is that his name? Garf. This is the Garf cart officially. Let's go. And Allison is going to be behind the wheel. I trust her more than me. Anyway, I was trying to beep a horn, but I don't think it doesn't look like you know how to use this thing. What? All right. Anyways, let's go. Okay. music video. We just had to pull over real quick because we had our first fox sighting.
Apparently, there are tiny foxes all over this island and we saw one over there. He was just chilling and he may or may not be hurt. I can't really tell, but we didn't want to get too close to him and mess with him. Y'all, this island has its own fox, the Catalina Island fox. It only exists here and it is the smallest fox in the US. But it is the cutest little thing in the world. Our golf cart adventure is off to a pretty dang good start, I'd say. But I don't know. I just kind of feel like something's missing.
Oh, yeah. Now I'm ready for a golf cart adventure. What do you guys think? Pretty cool, huh? Have you ever worn like a short sleeve button-down? No. But that all changes right now cuz this is the most appropriate shirt for this adventure. Don't you think? Why didn't I get a golf cart shirt? Dang, now I'm jealous. You lose, you lose, girl. Woo. Whatever. Onward. Okay. We had our second wildlife sighting. There's just a couple deer sitting right next to the road. There was even a buck over there.
I know. They're just sitting there chewing the cud, not minding us whatsoever. This island has actually been inhabited since 5,000 BC. In 1864, a fell named James Lick bought this island and he was known to be the wealthiest man in California. What did he do? I don't know, but I hope it had something to do with lollipops or popsicles. His plan was to turn it into a resort island, but it didn't quite work out for him. And he sold it to the Banning brothers, who then did a bit more than he did. Started putting some of the roads in the islands and things. And then in 1919, William Wrigley Jr. bought almost all the controlling shares of this island. And that is actually his old summer home, which is now a luxury hotel.
Not a bad place, huh? No, I would take it. I'd watch sunsets from up there. When you rent these golf carts, it's not really a free-for-all. They actually give you this map that has a specific tour that you're supposed to go on. It's like a self-guided tour, but it's nice. He marks in yellow everywhere that you want to go, in red everywhere you can't go, and he also marks all the little stops. Like, for example, the Wrigley home, which is where we are right now. Back on the road. Yes, please. Let's do it. So, this is the stop you have to make when you're doing the little golf cart tour. Check this view out. I got to look so I don't fall off of this.
What's cool is that from down at the bottom, it just looks like a bunch of boats in the harbor. But then when you get the bird's eye view, you can see that they're all in these nice little rows, but the sun hasn't set yet. So, you can see the beautiful color of the water and then you got the hills off in the distance. It is super like Mediterranean Italian Riviera out here. It is lovely. Sadly, the way this island is situated, the sun always sets on the back side of the island. So, you just get the nice glow over here. But boy, is it quite the glow. This glow is blowing my mind. I asked her if she has anything
funny to say and that's the best she came up with. Can you see my eyebrows are moving? I know I don't really have any. But this looks like an epic music video or something. This backdrop is insane. It looks fake. It's slow motion. So it looks like I know what I'm doing and I'm not just flailing around. All right, slow motion achievement unlocked. Did it look really cool in slow motion? I don't know. That's for the viewers to decide, I think. Yes. Okay, we decided to take ourselves a little break from our golf cart adventure. Grab ourselves a little coffee fuel. Luckily,
there is one cafe in town that has pretty dang good coffee. We've actually been taking this opportunity to book some upcoming travel. I think we are going to head to uh Mexico cuz we're kind of into this whole tropical vibe. I think we've already had enough of winter. Temperatures dipped below the 50s in St. Louis and so we're done with it. We're over it already. So you guys know this is our third trip with Delta. And since we started this, we have earned a bunch of miles. So the flights we've been booking have been very cheap. And with takeoff 15, eligible Delta Sky Miles American Express card members like me can automatically save 15% when using Miles Typical word travel on Delta flight when you're using Delta.com or
the Fly Delta app. Though that is not applicable to partner operated flights or taxes and fees. Are you guys still digging my golf cart? I like this thing. It's actually very breezy. And we are ready to get back out there and take on Catalina Island at 15 mph. Are you ready? I'm ready. Let's do it. Catalina Island is 22 mi long by 8 mi wide. So, it is really not all that big, but I mean 20 m. People actually hike from one end to the other. There's a ton of hiking trails on the island. So, if you're so inclined, you can definitely
do that. We're not. Thus, the golf cart. I think tomorrow we might do a very conservative two, maybe three miles. The weather here is very Mediterranean. Yes, it is. So, skip Italy. You can just come right off the coast of LA and it's going to be beautiful all year long. So, if it's too hot or too cold, this will be just perfect. There are two cities on Catalina Island. There's Avalon that we've been in and then there's two harbors, but everything outside of the main cities, I guess, is considered the interior of the island, and about 90% of that is owned by the Catalina Conservancy,
which was set up by the Wrigley family. So, they want to preserve this, and that they did. Just like that, our adventure is over. Ken confirmed the best way to see the island. Way better than using my dumb feet or bike. Yeah, I'm going to miss it. Bye-bye. There was one guy who decided to honk his horn and now every single boat out there is honking their horn. Oh, it's 5:00. Is that why they do it?
5:00 on the dot. Well, you can't come to a remote island and not order seafood. And that is exactly what we have done. We have ordered all of the seafood. There are tons of restaurants lining the pier. And we have gotten ourselves a seafood extravaganza. We got ourselves some steamed muscles with chorizo. Some calamari, which is probably our favorite seafood dish ever. And this, which we have never had before. This is grilled sandadabads, which is a fish with a face that only a mother could love. Both of its eyeballs are on the top of its head, y'all. So, from our research, we really couldn't find a restaurant that's served
local seafood that's like fresh caught here. But this is from California, and they do prepare their seafood here every single day. So, it is super fresh. I think it's in a butter sauce with capers. Ooh. Wow. Okay. Well, that is a super delicate, flaky white fish. Creamy and buttery. The capers, man, it really compliments it nice with some like salt and garlic. And they give us a charred lemon. I think it's going to take it to the next level. It really is an obnoxious amount of calamari, too. But I will probably eat every single bit of that. You're going to eat it all. And I love when they give you the tentacle pieces like that big old guy.
Yeah, baby. Oh, there he goes. So, I know the sun sets way over there on the other side of the island, but boy does it create a magical glow on LA. Just getting views like this at the end of the world. I love it. Did you say the end of the world? There's something going on that you're aware of that no one else is. No, isn't that what you say when you're like the edge of the world? Maybe. Oh, when you're at the edge of the world. Now all pan out.
Well, we woke up bright and early today because we are about to go do a hike in the interior, which is what they call any part of the island outside of the city. Luckily, there is one good coffee shop on this island. So, we have gotten ourselves our classic iced lattes and they have breakfast burritos. This is going to give us the fuel we need to do the hike all the way across the island. That's right, y'all. We're going for it. All 22 miles today. Right now lies. All lies. We're doing I think three miles. We don't need a golf cart today because there's actually a little transit service in town. Cost two bucks and it'll pretty much take you anywhere.
The hike starts at the top of town. You can do a 2mile walk up there. Takes about 45 minutes. Or you can take this two bus a pop. Well, if you want to know anything about what's going on the island, talk to your driver. He knew everything. For some reason, he seemed to think we wanted to go to a nightclub, though. So, apparently, there are good nightclubs here if you're into that. To get to this hike, you actually have to go through the Botanic Gardens, and you have to pay at the entrance to do the hike, and then you also have to sign up to do the hike. But it's kind of nice because strolling through the botanic
garden is beautiful. They've got all kinds of little pokey plants everywhere. Bunch of birds running about. So, you get to take in this pristine nature before you take on the nature. Yeah, we got some climbing to do. It's happening, you guys. We have our first real fox sighting. So cute. He's just literally crossing right by our path and doing it very elegantly in slow motion. All right. Well, that made my day.
Catalina Island success. Two nice people just walked by us on the trail and told Allison they loved her hat. My little bucket hat. Although they very well may have been talking about my hat. H. And this is the perfect hat for this hike because there are actually wild buffalo roaming on this island. But why, oh why are there buffalo on this random island off the coast of LA? Well, that is because in the 20s they actually shot a movie out here and they brought a bunch of buffalo out for the movie and then decided to just leave them here. And here they are 100 years later. And now they are beloved by many and they are taken care of. There is even a drink here called buffalo milk.
There you go. And it is actually made from real buffalo milk. Who'd have thought it? That would be so gross. That's a lie. That's false news. Hey, what did the buffalo say when his son went off to college? I don't know what. Bye, son. That's a good one. I can't believe I don't know that one. I made that up, but I'm pretty sure other people have probably made that up, too. That's good. So, I guess uh this is a buffalo bill. Get it? It's the hat, Bill. You're welcome. You're busting them out today, man. Feeling alive. Yep, we made it, you guys. That was tiring. Jeez, I'm a little out of shape, I think. But we made it to the top and you are rewarded with spectacular views of Avalon
right down there. All the other islands off in the distance have this layer of fog in the front of them with ships in the middle of it. It just looks really cool. We got to go back now. Jeez. Yep. All downhill from here, baby. We've just been walking around exploring Avalon a little bit more and this town is just so freaking fun. It's so tiny first off, so you can walk the entire thing. They have this downtown area with all these shops. It's right on the water and no cars are allowed whatsoever. So, it's just foot traffic. It's super quiet. I love this spot because there's this bus on display behind me and this is a part of like the culture of
Catalina Island. Back in the day, the Wrigleys bought a fleet of these vans and they would use them to traverse the rugged terrain of the island. They may not look it, but they're actually very capable. I think that there is still one that operates on this island, and you can do a tour on in that van if you are so inclined. Might not be the smoothest ride, but dang is it charming. We are just headed to the ferry to head back to the mainland. We picked the right day to leave because uh it's a Friday and a cruise ship came in and the town is swarming. There are so many people. But look online before you plan your trip and see what these cruise ships come in. They're a lot more chill when they're not here.
Yes. I mean, there was like a fraction of the amount of people that are here now. So, uh, yeah, let's get the heck out of here. Well, it's the worst part of every trip, the end. It's over. We have to fly back to reality. And I just looked on my phone. We have a freeze warning in St. Louis tonight, y'all. It's 70s and perfect here. I don't want to leave. But we will be back to the RV before you know it. But we got to pop back and see family as we've been trying to do more often.
Yes. But this airport is very big. We have a very long way to go. So, I am not going to be lugging this sucker along with me. Luckily, I get to check my first bag for free because I booked my Delta flight with my card. So, I am saving up to $70 round trip, which is perfect cuz that's probably about how much the meal is going to cost us in this airport cuz LA is not cheap, y'all. When we were about to board our flight, but uh we had a blast on Catalina Island, we were kind of blown away. I kept saying like, "Man, the vibe on this island is awesome. Everything's just pristine and clean and everyone's in such a good mood and I love all the goofy little cars and stuff.
It was just a totally great place to chill and relax and just wander around. Just make sure there's no cruise ship and don't go on the weekends. Stick to the weekdays. I think that's the best bet. But a huge thanks once again to American Express. You can uh check out our link in the description to find out how you can make the most of your travel with the Delta Sky Miles Platinum American Express card. But I think that's it. More travels to come. Yeah. Oo, exciting. All right. Goodbye, adventures. We'll see you on the road.
