Culture

This beautiful tile mural is over the box office in the foyer of the famous Casino in the City of Avalon on Catalina Island. She has been restored form the dark days of the 60s to the 80’s when this gorgeous structure fell into disrepair. Luckily, the whole place is looking good, although some places around the building could use a power wash. Nonetheless, this is one of the several wonderful aquatic murals in the Casino’s foyer. Click on the thumbnail image to see a close up.

When you are on an island, everything you consume has to be barged over from the mainland. In the case of groceries and gasoline, the entire delivery truck is loaded onto the barge and brought to the island and barged back empty. This causes the prices for such commodities to go way up.

While you can’t cut down on groceries and such, you can do something about fuel consumption. In order to cope with 5-dollar-per-gallon-plus gas prices, most Catalina Island residents drive small golf-cart sized vehicles since the town is rather small. You also see motor scooters and we saw a Segway while we were there.

One interesting vehicle we saw was this electric motorized stand-up three-wheeled solution which the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department uses to patrol the streets of Avalon. Click the image for a very big close-up.

We posed for this picture on the balcony of our hotel in Avalon when we were there for our anniversary last week.

I just love this building. The Casino is a 1920’s Art Deco creation and one of the most beautiful structures in California. I was here many years ago at a time when this majestic structure was run down and fenced off from the public. What a shame, I thought at the time. Fortunately, it’s completely restored and as beautiful as ever. We have a view of the Casino from our balcony at the Hotel Metropole, and watch the many moods that this wonderful landmark shows at different times of the day. One of the times it’s most beautiful is in the evening after sunset.