I have loads to catch up with you on so let’s just hit it starting with: we loved Santa Monica!  Somehow we’ve never been through that town before and yet it’s right next to, like everything cool in LA — downtown, the beach, shopping — heck, we could even see the Hollywood sign out our hotel room window!

As a reminder we were in town for the International Food Bloggers Conference (IFBC) and we stayed at the Doubletree Suites Hotel which overall I would give a thumbs up.  We had a large suite with living area, kitchenette, bedroom and giant bathroom at a reasonable rate.  It had two HD TV’s in it which made Glen and I realize, finally(!), how outdated our old square, heavy, JVC TV really is.  Our poor dinosaur may finally be put out to pasture here soon after being spoiled this weekend. You got free wifi, the elevators were super fast and the staff friendly and attentive.  On the negative side, you could only park your car with valet parking and the food at the hotel really, truly was pretty close to awful.  Which, you have to admit, is pretty dang funny since we were attending a food conference!

One of the best things about it though was definitely its location.  Before we got to the conference, we had a little time to kill so we hit the Santa Monica beach and pier for lunch.  Great place to start!  We cruised on down the boulevard made famous in a Sheryl Crow song and landed at a glorious stretch of sand and fun.  Since it was Veteran’s Day they also had a solemn display honoring the fallen soldiers that was tastefully done. We wandered the pier for a bit and after finding no real local restaurant represented we landed at Bubba Gumps where we split a trio or shrimp and a bowl of chowder.  Not knock-out good but not bad either. The place was a little loud on the thumping music and strong on good service.

While I attended the conference from Friday afternoon to Sunday mid-morning, Glen explored.  I swear the guy loves it when he gets to tag along on these educational opportunities for me.  It gives him loads of time to do whatever he wants and he put that to good use. From what I can tell he ate his way through Santa Monica!  He walked all over, found fun dining spots, and even got a haircut from an 85-year-old barber full of local tales.  The barber hooked him up with the fact that the Will Roger’s museum was nearby so off he went in pursuit of that tour.  And when he wasn’t out and about, he was napping and watching TV on the big screen HD set.  Honestly — he barely noticed I was gone!

Santa Monica has a kind of “happening” vibe.  The crowds are youngish, the weather is fine, the beach is near, it has this cool pedestrian shopping area called the “Third Street Promenade”, downtown is close by and the neighborhoods still have a feeling of the vacation location it must have been back in the early 1900′s. If I lived in LA, I think this is somewhere that would pull on me. Plan to check it out for yourself next time you head to sunny CA.

Then today, once the conference ended, we headed out for the second leg of our Yesvember trip — Catalina Island.  For once we had remembered to bring our GPS with us so we loaded it with the address of the Catalina Express ferry and made good time finding the dock – only to find out that location didn’t run off season!  So off we went to the next location where we managed to arrive in time to wave goodbye to the boat.  The good news was we were able to get tickets for the next one a couple hours later and the Seahawks game was on in the bar where we babied a couple of Bloody Mary’s and split a tasty seafood sandwich.

People poured off the boat when it docked from Catalina but going over the crowd was, well, really not a crowd.  Perfect by me!  Totally not so perfect though, turned out to be the seas.  : (  ay caramba.  Tough ride over.  The sea swells were only one to two feet the captain said but they felt like 10 to 12 to me and my stomach.  Whoa!  We did hear from a local that that kind of crossing is not common and aside from that it really was nice.  The boat was roomy and comfortable, you cruise right past the old Queen Mary and as soon as you clear the Long Beach port area you see Catalina.  It’s really a lot more “mountainous” then I expected, not flat at all.  This girl was thrilled to see port and even more thrilled when we walked into Avalon.  It’s wonderful here!  Charming. Magical. Idyllic. We’re staying in an old, renovated hotel right in the middle of town — The Catalina Island Inn.  The boat docks down the way and we just rolled our suitcases on down to the hotel and then drug them up three steep flights of stairs to our room (no elevators or help so be warned if you come here — pack light!) So far we have strolled the picturesque little village and are just getting ready to head out for some dinner (Glen is pulling on me to finish up!) so I’ll bring you more soon on a more full report.  I have to say though that I expect my recommendation to be:  come to Catalina!  Never mind about that earlier stuff on moving to Santa Monica — Avalon is the place we want to be.

Very sincerely — your fickle blogger  : )