Island Inland

As usual, I've got a backlog of posts I'd like to do. Yesterday was my birthday, and much happened. The week before our kitty had to go in for emergency surgery, and they saved his kitty bacon. Once again, 2013 is turning out to be rather expensive. He's got a bald patch on his front leg where they had an IV that he kept trying to pull out. Muscle relaxers for a cat, you wouldn't think they'd even make such a thing, huh???

Took the Falcon on a beach cruise, and we went up to the mountains for another vacation. My mom fell in a brier patch. Bought myself another cool little technology device, a month before my birthday, but I'll call it my birthday present to myself. Putting Little Black Submarines on me blog drove up traffic. Hope someone else enjoyed my artwork.

But for now, here's part two from our first vacation, the part where we went on the Inland tour!!!

Last time we were over there, I saw one of the buses they use for the inland tour, 1953 Flxable buses. Actually going out of the Avalon city limits would be a nice change, and going on such an awesome looking vintage bus was a plus!!!

I had to get a few shots of the bus. They ride as good as they look!!!

And a cool shot in a parabolic mirror going around one of the hairpin turns, only marred by a little piece of duct tape!!!

A shot I didn't manage to get on last year's trip, a bald eagle!!! Too bad it was in an animal sanctuary, but it made for a good shot.

And buffalo. Originally brought over for the filming of the movie "The Vanishing American" by Zane Gray (who himself lived on the island for a while, heard an amusing story that I again may relate...), and when the movie was done filming, William Wrigley Jr. opted to purchase them. They about overran the island, and now are kept on birth control. One of the offerings by many of the restaurants on the island is buffalo burgers. I had always assumed it was locally raised buffalo, but it is all imported from the mainland, where the USDA can keep an eye on the proceedings!!!

Back side of the island. Kinda makes you want to camp out there for a while, huh???

Another shot of the bus, and my sweet 512 shirt!!!

The famed Airport in the Sky!!! Since my nephew has his pilot's licenses, I always think it'd be cool to have him fly us over there. It is notoriously tricky, as the strip is high in the middle, so coming in, it tends to look too short.

The bus driver told us about the cookies. He was right about the cookies. I've heard about the "$100 burger" at the Airport in the Sky. I could have gotten in on that, but opted for the cookie and a Monster. The $100 burger is when a pilot will fly over and get lunch there.

Outside there was a pretty cool tile mosaic map of Catalina. I jumped up on it and was taking pictures when one of the Air Traffic Controllers stepped out onto the balcony of the tower and told me to get down from there. Of course, after that I saw the sign saying not to get up on it!!!

My wife's sunglasses broke the first day, and she'd looked at one of the shops along Crescent Street in Avalon. They were over $50 there, and these at the airport were only $14, so bargain priced!!!

It was a pretty long voyage, but it was a great experience!!! Even little babies approve!!!

Let's Try That Again...

Once again, back from vacation with many a picture and many a tale!!!

This vacation, due to the financial constraints imposed by the sewer repair from earlier this year, is something of a revisit of two years ago's vacation where everything broke!!! This year came out somewhat better than the last one, but there were a few rough patches along the way this year, too.

The first couple of shots here I'm thinking of entering in my works second photo contest. I entered a couple shots in the first one, and didn't prevail with either. To be fair, there were a LOT of great shots entered!!! The first shot is of Descanso beach, where you go to start the zip line tour. Yeah, we did that again this year, on the first day we were there!!! The price has gone up, but they've improved the course with automatic braking at the end of the runs. They've added night runs, and that was (kinda) what we got. It was actually a twilight run, which could have gone until it was full dark, but the tour we were on only had two other people besides our group. Only had to have our headlights on for the last line. The younger is heavy enough to go on his own now!!! The second shot is from the top floor of the Casino building.

We went paddle boarding & kayaking around the harbor the next day (or the day after??? It's all a blur)... after we'd gone parasailing!!! Another that the younger had wanted to do, but chickened out on last time. He made it this time, though, and thoroughly enjoyed it!!!

A couple of new things we got to do this time were the inland tour (on a 1953 Flxable bus!!!) that made it to the far side of the island with a stop at the Catalina airport, the Airport in the Sky, and the behind the scenes tour of the Casino. Both were very cool, and both could get a post of their own. See if that happens!!! First time I've ever been inside the Casino, even though I've been to the island probably a dozen or more times since I was a kid!!!

I'd meant to put a shot or two of the Airport in the Sky... still could, but if I don't maybe I'll get to doing a post about that trip!!! There's the bus...

And there's a group shot from on the bus!!!

What about those rough patches??? They were both due to online travel sites, or at least so it seems. First one came on the day we arrived in Catalina. We caught the shuttle van up to the hotel, same one we'd stayed at last time, and went to check in. The desk clerk checks, and lo and behold, no reservation!!! She looks a bit further, and finds it... three days later, the day we were supposed to check out!!! Of course, there's no available rooms of the class we'd reserved. The desk clerk was awesome, and it took about 45 minutes and four hang ups on the phone from Expedia, but finally they got them to fax over an overwrite, and they put us up in an open room... the executive suite!!! Awesome room!!! It has a separate master bedroom, full kitchen, huge bathroom with a two person whirlpool tub and a giant shower stall, and two balconies on either side!!! EPIC!!! Better than our home, but a bit smaller. If I win the lottery, I'm moving in there for a few weeks straight!!!

The second came back on the mainland. To avoid any vehicular mishaps, a la last time, I had a rental car reserved. Headed over to pick it up, and, surprise, no reservation!!! Furthermore, no, we don't even have any cars, so you're out of luck!!! This was in Long Beach, so I headed over to my parents house to use their computer and retrieve the reservation information. Half an hour on the phone with Hotwire (much of it on hold) and they finally connect me to Budget rental company: "Oh, I see you've got a reservation with us... yes, we have that and we have your car waiting for you..." Funny how now they do... Needless to say, I'm not much impressed by either of these companies. From this point on, I called ahead on every reservation to verify.

There's the minor outline of the island portion of our vacation, as well as the worser parts. Back on the mainland we hit several parks, but none of them for a full day. We did a night in Buena Park, with an afternoon and evening at Knott's Berry Farm, then the next morning Knott's Soak City water park. Down to Carlsbad (same resort as two years back) and a morning at the Lego water park (which you have to go through the Legoland park to get to) then left for lunch with the thought of returning to Legoland for the afternoon-evening. Both boys were tired out and stayed back, but mom and I had to return to retrieve our stuff from the locker, as well as go on the Dragon coaster and check out Miniland some. The next day we went to Legoland some more, then down to San Diego. We went to Boomers mini golf & fun zone that evening, where we rode the go-carts several times, did the batting cages, rode the world's weakest bumper boats (but with a cool built in water cannon) and played 18 holes. Our last full day we headed off to Sea World until around 2 or so. I know there's a lot more I could tell about, but we'll save that for another post!!!

The Bachelor Bus

OK, this post isn't going to be all about the ride, but it has a nice rhythm to it, don't you think??? It was nice, thought. A great way to party and not have to worry about driving home. I was the last guy they picked up.


I did tell my wife that we were in a "party bus" instead of telling her it was a nice stretch limo with open bar. I'm pretty sure she would have had more of a problem with not having gotten to ride in a limo than with me going to a strip club with the guys, but more on that part later.

Our first stop was for dinner at Texas Loosey's, a restaurant I used to love YEARS ago, but thought they had all gone out of business. If memory serves, they used to serve traditional steaks and many varieties of burger, along with some great Texas red chili. The menu hasn't changed much, still great food. The other attraction is the waitresses. Know how a lot of times girls will dress up for Halloween, but whatever the costume choice is, you can usually put the modifier "slutty" in front of it??? Picture slutty cow girl costumes, that's pretty much it. Seems to me that they used to have suede push up vests with tons of cleavage, but these days its more like a halter top with an open leather vest over it. Short shorts with leather chaps round out the costume. My nephew was duly impressed, especially with the barkeeper gal. The waitresses tried their best to talk him out of marriage, and when unsuccessful, posed with him for a Polaroid. We finished up by telling the barkeeper to give us some kind of shot, her best choice. I don't remember what it was called, but it was a variant of the red headed slut.

Back in the party bus, we took one guy (father of the bride, ha!!!) home, it was already getting late for him. A quick stop at the liquor store to replenish the bar, where one of the guys picked up a copy of Club magazine that came with a DVD for my nephew. The bus had a DVD player, but in our state none of us could get it to work.

The final stop of the evening was Larry Flynt's Hustler Club. Nice place. If you're not familiar with the local regulations on such establishments, I shall enlighten you, an it is pertinent to later happenings. If you serve alcohol, the poonanny must remain hidden. Ergo, if you want to see a full nude show, you will be drinking apple juice or Perrier. Nope, we were drinking beer and seeing nothing but boobies. Life is good. Something I found interesting, at both this club and the concert the following evening, the music was loud, but not deafening to a point where normal conversation is difficult.

The girl doing her stage routine when we came in was a tall, tattooed blond, looked like a rocker type. After she finished her set and put her top back on, she came right to me. Guess she caught me lookin'!!! "Would you like to have a dance???" "No, not for me, but you know what??? It's my nephew's bachelor party, why don't you do a little number for him???" Money changed hands, and I bought him his first lap dance of the evening.

It has been quite some time since I've been to such an establishment. On my last visit, it seemed to be dominated my massive synthetic breasts. Not so much this time, there were a few, but the fakes that were there were mostly subtle, and several of the girls looked completely natural. Around the other side, though, I was seeing a LOT of cottage cheese!!! Hard times for such clubs, or just low standards??? Who knows???

One of the girls comes out, a light redhead with pale skin that makes you think the red is natural. Flexible!!! Amazingly flexible!!! And athletic and talented!!! After making a show of wrapping her legs around her head, she proceeded to climb to the top of the pole (must be at least 15 feet up), I swear she didn't use her hands at all!!! I was in awe. The arrangement of the stage has one main stage, then a side stage that the girls would do a second song on after their appearance on the main stage. I followed her to that stage to watch up close, and threw her a few ones. After she finished she came up to me and thanked me. I asked if that was her natural hair color (yes, I knew it!!!) and complimented her on her flexibility and pole prowess. She thanked me again, then asked, "So, do you wanna hang out???" I reply, "You know, I'm all outta cash..." "Bye." And she was gone like that. Nice thing about strippers, you always know where you stand with 'em!!!

But I keep getting out of sequence here. Prior to that, and a good part of the reason I was down on money: As I was sitting there enjoying the show and my beer, a brunette with a kinda long face and noticeably more clothing on than all the other girls comes up to me. She starts running her hands over my shoulders and neck, and whispers in my ear, "I've got the best deal going in this place, baby, all these other girls charge $20 a song for a dance, I'm only $6 a dance to do this" and she proceeds to start giving a deep neck rub. Duh, OK boss!!! Lets go!!! She applies some lotion to her hands and goes at it, unbuttoning a couple buttons on my shirt, running down my back, working my neck. OH YES!!! She stands in front of me and tells me, "Look down". I do so, and for a moment am looking straight down her scant cleavage before realizing she's having me do this to better rub my lower back. She stayed with me for several songs. It was the next day before it occurred to me what else she could be rubbing down with her lotion!!!

Another girl comes up to me and crouches down next to my chair. She's wearing skimpy boy shorts, and she tells me, "This is so embarrassing. I forgot to put on any panties under these shorts an' when I dance or move around they slip to the side an' my pussy shows." In my head, I'm laughing my ass off!!! She's embarrassed about this, so she calls attention to it??? Or was she worried that her lady bits would be seen in the presence of alcohol??? The only thing I could think to say, "O'rlly???"
She didn't miss a beat, "Yea, its so embarrassing, wanna go for a dance???" Thanks but no thanks.

Near the end of our time there, another girl comes up to me. Petite, black and with what I think was a Haitian or Caribbean accent. Nice enough, but not the kind I would go looking for personally. "Wanna dance, me sucky-sucky you long time???" I stare in disbelief, you can't do that kind of thing in a place like this, perhaps I misheard because of the accent??? She pantomimes the act so there could be no question. I'm starting to like her style. "I'm sorry, I'm low on cash." She replies, "There's the ATM, right over there." Then she reaches into my shirt pocket and pulls out my money clip, which looks fairly fat but is really just a few ones left over from the back rub girl. Hindsight, I should have told her she could have it all for a dance, I think it was only about $8. She goes on to one of the other guys in our party, and they go off for a private dance. She comes back some time later and tells me, "See that one girl??? The one with the long tank top on???" I say, just as she's saying, "Yea, covering her kinda big gut" She laughs. "She was staring at me while I was giving your friend a lotta dance. She jealous." I know there was more, but that's all I remember. I wasn't into her at all at first, but there was something engaging about her that made her my favorite of all. Perhaps it was that she didn't take a single dollar from me but still kept coming around and amusing me.

After last call, we all piled back into the bus for the ride home. Chauffeur Fred had gotten the DVD working for us, and it distracted us on the ride back. First time in a long time for any such hijinks, and it was a good time!!!