osheas::blog

Santa Catalina was awaitin’ for us. Our adventures with Chuck’s niece Katie continued yesterday with a trip across the channel to Catalina Island. The zippy catamaran took only an hour to get there. (After our whale quest, we did keep an eye out for any of the pesky critters but saw only one dolphin and one rock-colored cat living on the end of the Catalina pier on the rocks.) We walked around the town (from one end to the other at a brisk pace takes about 1/2 an hour), then went on a one hour scenic tour to get a lay of the land, and rented a golf cart (the primary means of transportation on the island). The highlight of Katie’s day came when we let her drive the golf cart (she gets her license next year). Catalina is a wonderful place to spend the day: it is so small that you quickly exhaust the entertainment in town (the museum is well worth a visit if you have time). I love it over there; we didn’t do my favorite thing yesterday, which is to get a massage and/or facial at the fabulous A Touch of Heaven spa. Katie’s not quite old enough to appreciate that sort of luxurious pleasure. Oh well, there’s always next year!

Of course, we took pictures.

For Chuck’s birthday this year, I gave him a hot air balloon ride in Sedona, AZ. We drove up on Friday, and woke up bright and early Saturday for the ride. It was pretty cold, but clear as a bell. The whole experience was amazing, and we took a lot of pictures. After the balloon ride we went back to our B&B, a place called Boots & Saddles, where they served us a sumptuous breakfast. We were feeling pretty stuffed after that, so headed out to do some shopping and hiking. The big activity in Sedona is sunset-watching, so we ended our day by joining the crowds about 6pm and were rewarded with a beautiful show. Sedona is a really fabuolus place! Here are some of the pictures we took of the whole weekend. I made a quicktime movie as well. A word of warning: it’s pretty big, at 7.3MB. All in all, not a bad way to spend a long weekend! But I’m still miffed that Star Trek transporter technology is still not available to us. It sure would cut down on the long drive there and back!