Catalina Trip

This trip had been under wraps for quite some time, over one year and that is a long time for me!!  It's hard to plan something in such a long advance but I just decided it would be on my list and some how it would happen.  After all, I have a friend who turned 50 and this was her birthday trip and you only turn 50 once.....  It truly makes my birthday feel insignificant and I'm okay with that (smile)!!

As you may imagine, the week before my trip was action packed in our homeschooling room!!  There was a lot of extra pushing, which doesn't always work well, yet I pursued in order to help my mom out, who agreed to come and stay with the kids!!  Boy, was I glad!!!

I left one week ago on Tuesday and joined eight other girls, all CA born girls, except myself.  Our group grew this year from our last backpacking trip to include three sisters!!  Was that ever fun!!!  We all met in LA and spent our first night in the Queen Mary!!  I was wishing very much time would have allowed for me to take the tour of the boat, but it just didn't happen...

Our first dinner together!!!

The port hole out of our window of the Queen Mary.

Inside the Queen Mary

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Getting ready to leave LA and take the ferry to Catalina Island.

Getting on the ferry.

Getting close to Avalon

Gretchen looking out the window

Our tent cabins

It was such a beautiful setting for our first night!!

beautiful

"The sisters" settling in

2 Harbors



beautiful evening with the full moon!

The ferry made a stop in Avalon and then went on to Two Harbors to the other side of the island where we started our backpacking trip!!  I found a map to show the island better.  We took some of the trans Catalina trail but not the whole way...