Laura Roberts's Blog, page 4

Catalina from A to Z: Luscious Lover’s Cove

Hello, and welcome to the Blogging A to Z Challenge! This year my theme is Catalina from A to Z, featuring posts about the Southern California island of Catalina. With a focus on the island’s romantic side, I’ll be sharing info about where to go, what to see and do, plus a few sneak peeks from my novel in progress, Wife For A Weekend, which is set on the island!

Lovers Cove is one of the most romantically named spots on Catalina Island… but how does it really stack up if you’re in the mood for love?

Located on Pebbly Beach Road, the cove doesn’t have much of a beach to speak of, so you certainly won’t be smooching on the sand. However, it’s a popular spot for snorkeling since it’s just a short hike from Avalon, so lovers interested in an aquatic excursion should be in seventh heaven.

If you do aim to visit Lovers Cove with your sweetheart, be sure to bring your own gear (snorkeling equipment, kayaks, stand-up paddleboards, etc.) or rent it in town before you head out. One of the best places to snap a photo or steal a kiss might just be here, on the steps leading down to the cove itself, where various warning signs about the lack of lifeguards and avoidance of glass-bottom boats are posted:

Photo via TripAdvisor

“This is not a petting zoo” is my favorite admonishment on the sign, especially in regards to the couple featured above. ;D

Eager to learn more about Catalina?

Join my mailing list to get each day’s posts delivered straight to your inbox in a single update, sent every Sunday!

Catalina from A to Z: Keen kissing locales

Hello, and welcome to the Blogging A to Z Challenge! This year my theme is Catalina from A to Z, featuring posts about the Southern California island of Catalina. With a focus on the island’s romantic side, I’ll be sharing info about where to go, what to see and do, plus a few sneak peeks from my novel in progress, Wife For A Weekend, which is set on the island!

Whether you’re visiting Catalina in order to spark romance or even pop the ultimate question, there are plenty of places that are sure to inspire a kiss! Here are three of the best places to get caught canoodling or sneak a smooch:

Casino promenade: Running along the outside of the Casino’s circular ballroom, the promenade is a great place to get some fresh air, look up at the stars, and steal a kiss.Buena Vista Point: As both The Traveling Souk and Homegrown Adventures can attest, Buena Vista Point has one of the best views of the city of Avalon, as well as the bay and Casino. After a bit of an uphill trek, what’s better than a bit of snuggling in the shade?Pick a beach, any beach: Any of Catalina’s 50 miles of beaches would make a great place for a little fun in the sun, but if you’re looking for a secluded option for your chance to get cozy, try the extra remote Parsons Landing – a 7-mile hike from Two Harbors, on the north side of the island’s west end. (HOT TIP: Be sure to BYOB, as there’s no running or potable water where you’re going!)The Wife for a Weekend connection

In my romance novel, Wife for a Weekend, Diego Raphael and Vivian Violette are co-starring in a film that’s being shot on Catalina Island. Most of the cast and crew assume the two stars will fall head over heels while they’re on set together, based on Catalina’s reputation as the “Island of Romance,” but little do they know that director Adam Haber has a doozy of a prank up his sleeve. After the two kiss and say “I do” in a wedding scene for the film, the practical joker announces they’ve just been married for real.

WHAT?!?

When real life isn’t quite like a Hollywood romance, will the two actors find a way to make it work? Find out just how Diego and Vivian deal with being thrown together for a long weekend by pre-ordering a copy of the book!

Eager to learn more about Catalina?

Join my mailing list to get each day’s posts delivered straight to your inbox in a single update, sent every Sunday!

Catalina from A to Z: Jovial Jeep tours

Hello, and welcome to the Blogging A to Z Challenge! This year my theme is Catalina from A to Z, featuring posts about the Southern California island of Catalina. With a focus on the island’s romantic side, I’ll be sharing info about where to go, what to see and do, plus a few sneak peeks from my novel in progress, Wife For A Weekend, which is set on the island!

What’s more romantic than a Jeep ride into the wild heart of Catalina Island?

Okay, I guess that depends on your position when it comes to rugged, outdoorsy things like camping, hiking, and looking for island buffalo.

But if you find the idea of hiking in the semi-wilderness more appealing than lounging by the beach, an island Eco Tour in either a Jeep or an Eco Hummer is the Catalina getaway for you!

As the Catalina Island Conservancy puts it: “With access to over 165 miles of paved and unpaved roads, our naturalist-led Conservancy Eco Tours allow you to explore parts of Catalina Island no other outfitter can reach. Whether you are hoping to learn more about the Island’s rich history, see some of our unique plants, wildlife and bison, or simply explore parts of Catalina that most people never see, your adventure starts here!”

So, what do you think? Will you venture forth for a bit of exploration on the island’s west end, or stay in Avalon enjoying the more luxurious side of the east side?

Eager to learn more about Catalina?

Join my mailing list to get each day’s posts delivered straight to your inbox in a single update, sent every Sunday!

Catalina from A to Z: Intriguing Isthmus Movie Colony

Hello, and welcome to the Blogging A to Z Challenge! This year my theme is Catalina from A to Z, featuring posts about the Southern California island of Catalina. With a focus on the island’s romantic side, I’ll be sharing info about where to go, what to see and do, plus a few sneak peeks from my novel in progress, Wife For A Weekend, which is set on the island!

The Isthmus is located on the western end of Catalina Island, where it’s better known as the village of Two Harbors. Although most visitors to the island come to enjoy the city of Avalon, Two Harbors is much more rustic and offers a different vibe altogether. Camping is more common than luxury accommodations on this side of the island, and outdoor enthusiasts will find plenty of water sports to occupy their time, such as snorkeling, scuba diving, kayaking and sailing.

The Isthmus Movie Colony was so named during the era of big Hollywood productions that used Catalina as a filming location during the 1920s and 30s. Movies like The Mutiny on the Bounty and Treasure Island were shot here (with Catalina standing in for Polynesian locations), and according to The Hollywood Reporter dailies were processed in the Casino to avoid having to make boat trips back to the studios in LA.

The Wife for a Weekend connection

In my romance novel, Wife for a Weekend, Hollywood is back on the island to shoot the movie Island Romance, starring Diego Raphael and Vivian Violette. Naturally, everyone assumes the two stars will fall in love on set, just like they do in the movies – but real life isn’t quite like a Hollywood romance, is it? Find out just how Diego and Vivian deal with being thrown together for a long weekend on the Island of Romance by pre-ordering a copy of the book!

Eager to learn more about Catalina?

Join my mailing list to get each day’s posts delivered straight to your inbox in a single update, sent every Sunday!

Catalina from A to Z: Heady helicopters

Hello, and welcome to the Blogging A to Z Challenge! This year my theme is Catalina from A to Z, featuring posts about the Southern California island of Catalina. With a focus on the island’s romantic side, I’ll be sharing info about where to go, what to see and do, plus a few sneak peeks from my novel in progress, Wife For A Weekend, which is set on the island!

One of the two* ways to reach Catalina Island is via helicopter, so let’s talk air travel!

IEX (Island Express Helicopters) is the island’s sole helicopter service provider, and the typical price of a flight is $159 per person, one-way, or $318 round-trip, whether you choose to depart from Burbank, Long Beach, Orange County or San Pedro. The company has choppers that can accommodate either six or nine total passengers, so you can also arrange for group rates.

Flight time to the island via helicopter is just 15 minutes (compared with the hour-long ferry ride), so if you’re in a hurry to scoot over to the Island of Romance, then a helicopter is the best way to get there fast.

If you prefer to fly by airplane, private jets can schedule landings at Catalina’s Airport-In-The-Sky. For more info (and pricing), contact the airport by phone at 310-510-0143.

—

* The other way is by boat, whether private yacht, rubber dinghy, or publicly accessible ferry. I would not advise swimming!

The Wife for a Weekend connection

In my book, Wife for a Weekend, Adam Haver – a mischievous director – uses a private helicopter to escape Diego and Vivian after playing a very naughty practical joke on them… but you’ll have to read the book to find out exactly what he does – as well as Diego and Vivian’s resulting nickname for him!

Eager to learn more about Catalina?

Join my mailing list to get each day’s posts delivered straight to your inbox in a single update, sent every Sunday!

Catalina from A to Z: Glorious glass-bottom boats

Hello, and welcome to the Blogging A to Z Challenge! This year my theme is Catalina from A to Z, featuring posts about the Southern California island of Catalina. With a focus on the island’s romantic side, I’ll be sharing info about where to go, what to see and do, plus a few sneak peeks from my novel in progress, Wife For A Weekend, which is set on the island!

Have you ever set sail on a glass-bottom boat? Then you’ve enjoyed an invention first used off the shores of Catalina Island!

Florida may claim to have the oldest operational glass-bottom boat, but the idea of taking tourists on a boat where they could easily observe marine life was pioneered in Catalina. According to the book Catalina A to Z: “In 1890, abalone harvester Charley Feige used a box with a glass pane in the bottom that he held over the side of his boat to better see beneath the surface of Avalon Bay. He then installed a glass pane in the bottom of one of his rowboats. Tourism soon became a larger business for him than abalone. Captain J. E ‘Pard’ Mathewson arrived in Avalon in 1892, noticed Feige’s enterprise and created bigger boats with bigger panes of heavy-glass in the bottom. In 1902, Mathewson debuted a thirty-eight-foot, gas-powered side-wheeler, the Mon Ami, a glass-bottomed boat that could carry fifteen passengers. Glass-bottom boat tours became de rigueur for Catalina tourists in the twentieth century. Hollywood got into the act when Doris Day and Rod Taylor starred in the Avalon-set The Glass Bottom Boat (1966).” (p. 83-85)

Poster for The Glass Bottom Boat featuring Doris Day and Rod Taylor

As for Doris Day, her turn in The Glass Bottom Boat as a NASA employee accused of being a spy is quite humorous, although tragically the appearance of both the glass-bottomed boat and Catalina Island are far too brief! After Rod Taylor accidentally hooks her mermaid costume while she’s diving in the bay to entertain her father’s boat passengers, there’s not much more of the island in the film, but it’s still worth a watch for the enemies-to-lovers workplace romance that blooms between the two government employees.

Eager to learn more about Catalina?

Join my mailing list to get each day’s posts delivered straight to your inbox in a single update, sent every Sunday!

Catalina from A to Z: The Four Preps

Hello, and welcome to the Blogging A to Z Challenge! This year my theme is Catalina from A to Z, featuring posts about the Southern California island of Catalina. With a focus on the island’s romantic side, I’ll be sharing info about where to go, what to see and do, plus a few sneak peeks from my novel in progress, Wife For A Weekend, which is set on the island!

Back in the day, The Four Preps was a boy band of four, way back before the concept of “boy bands” even existed. As Wikipedia describes them, they were “a male quartet,” but for our purposes I’d call them four clean-cut young fellows in button-down shirts and khakis. These all-American boys were signed to a contract with Capitol Records fresh out of Hollywood High School (they were actually spotted at a talent show, can you believe it?), and wrote a hit song called “26 Miles (Santa Catalina)” in 1957 that made it all the way to the number two slot on the Billboard Top 100 in 1958.

As you can probably guess, “26 Miles (Santa Catalina)” is about Catalina Island! The island is, indeed, located approximately 26 miles off the coast of Los Angeles, and the lyrics basically talk about their desire to get to the island to dance and flirt with the girls. It’s a pretty wholesome song as you might expect from something penned by a group of boys who were high schoolers in the 1950s. The word “romance” is repeated four times in a row in each chorus, so it’s pretty clear what was on these boys’ minds.

The band’s original line-up included Bruce Belland (lead vocals), Ed Cobb (bass), Marv Ingram (high tenor), and Glen A. Larson (baritone). The group still performs on occasion, with current members including co-founder Bellend as well as Bob Duncan and Michael Redman (both formerly of the Crew Cuts), plus Jim Armstrong.

I can’t remember how I originally discovered this song, but it immediately grabbed my attention and made me want to learn more about this “island of romance”! It seems I’m not the only one, as Beach Boys singer Brian Wilson has cited it as an influence on his own music, as have Jimmy Buffett and the recently-deceased Neil Peart from Rush.

A final factoid about the song “26 Miles” that I find amusing: Wikipedia calls attention to its “alternate chorus,” which “contains a rare mention of a metric unit in American popular music,” citing the lyrics “40 kilometers in a leaky old boat…” To be entirely accurate, 26 miles translates to 41.8 kilometers, but hey, close enough, right?

Eager to learn more about Catalina?

Join my mailing list to get each day’s posts delivered straight to your inbox in a single update, sent every Sunday!

Catalina from A to Z: Exotic El Rancho Escondido

Hello, and welcome to the Blogging A to Z Challenge! This year my theme is Catalina from A to Z, featuring posts about the Southern California island of Catalina. With a focus on the island’s romantic side, I’ll be sharing info about where to go, what to see and do, plus a few sneak peeks from my novel in progress, Wife For A Weekend, which is set on the island!

What’s more romantic than a hidden ranch?

Back when Catalina was still a relatively undeveloped island in the early 1930s, the Wrigley family (whose Catalina Island Company privately owns the island to this day) decided to tame and breed some of the island’s wild horses. Ultimately, this resulted in a horse breeding program that brought the family’s Arabians success at horse shows and competitions throughout the United States. El Rancho Escondido, aka “the hidden ranch,” is the home where the program flourished, and it became known as an attraction worth visiting if you were an equestrian or horse enthusiast.

For whatever reason, the breeding program was eventually disbanded, and the ranch where the Arabians once lived fell into disuse. Skipping ahead to the present day, the hidden ranch has been fully restored by descendants of the Wrigley family (Alison Rusack, along with her husband Geoff) and has also found a new use: it’s currently home to Rusack Vineyards, a highly rated producer of Catalina-made chardonnay and pinot noir wines.

So, I guess the answer to my seemingly rhetorical question is: a vineyard!

Eager to learn more about Catalina?

Join my mailing list to get each day’s posts delivered straight to your inbox in a single update, sent every Sunday!

Catalina from A to Z: Decadent Descanso Beach

Hello, and welcome to the Blogging A to Z Challenge! This year my theme is Catalina from A to Z, featuring posts about the Southern California island of Catalina. With a focus on the island’s romantic side, I’ll be sharing info about where to go, what to see and do, plus a few sneak peeks from my novel in progress, Wife For A Weekend, which is set on the island!

Due to various restrictions on alcohol, and particularly those in glass or non-resealable containers, Descanso Beach is one of the only beaches in California where alcohol is still permitted. “A drink in your hand and your feet in the sand” is their motto. If you’re hankering for a Buffalo Milk, this is one of the many places on the island where you can order its signature drink!

Charging a $2 entry fee, the private beach located east of the Catalina Casino offers food and drink services, as well as rentals of chaise lounges or cabanas, as well as add-ons like kayak or stand-up paddleboard rentals, and even DJs that keep the beach blanket party going daily from 11 AM to 3 PM (weekdays: Monday through Thursday) or 11 AM to 4 PM (weekends: Friday to Sunday).

You can also bring your own snorkels and explore the faux shipwreck, search for sea glass, or simply splash about in the shallow water – although be forewarned that there’s a strip of rocks between the white sand of the beach and the ocean.

Learn more about Descanso Beach Club, or make your reservations here!

The Wife for a Weekend connectionGael García Bernal in Neruda (2016) – some costume/physical inspiration for my hero, Diego

The hero of my novel, Diego Raphael, loves being able to evade his fans at Descanso Beach. A huge movie star that is regularly swamped by paparazzi, he can slip on a pair of Ray Bans, a Panama hat, and a well-groomed beard and recline on the beach without a second glance. Only his personal butler knows his true identity – and given the excellent tips he receives on a weekly basis, he’ll never reveal Diego’s secret. But when an up-and-coming starlet named Vivian Violette discovers Diego’s trick to hiding in plain sight, will his anonymity on this laid-back island be threatened?

Eager to learn more about Catalina?

Join my mailing list to get each day’s posts delivered straight to your inbox in a single update, sent every Sunday!

Catalina from A to Z: Casino conundrum

Join my mailing list to get each day’s posts delivered straight to your inbox in a single update, sent every Sunday!

Catalina Island is home to a beautiful casino, which is the first thing you’ll see upon approaching the island. The circular structure is as tall as a 12-story building, and its Mediterranean Revival style makes it impossible to miss. But names can be deceiving. If you’re thinking about card games and slot machines, just like in Las Vegas, you’ll be disappointed. There’s no gambling at the Catalina Casino, because it takes its name from the Italian word for “gathering place.”

Instead of craps and blackjack, inside the Casino you’ll find the world’s largest circular ballroom. With a diameter of 180 feet, the 20,000-square-foot ballroom can hold 3,000 dancers! The ballroom is located on the second floor of the Casino and opens out onto the Romance Promenade, a balcony that completely surrounds the building.

On the first floor is the Avalon Theatre, a movie theater with seating capacity for an audience of 1,154. The theater is fully insulated against any sounds from the ballroom above, and boasts both a pipe organ and a variety of Art Deco murals.

Visitors can tour the Casino with either the “Discover the Casino” or “Behind the Scenes Casino” walking tours, where Frankie from Avalon will give you the inside scoop about every nook and cranny within the Casino’s walls and maybe, if you’re lucky, he’ll even teach you to jitterbug!

Eager to learn more about Catalina?

Join my mailing list to get each day’s posts delivered straight to your inbox in a single update, sent every Sunday!