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SUNDAY • OCTOBER 18, 2015
Vibrant off-season Birthday couple discover the only things missing on Catalina Island in December are the crowds
JOANNE DIBONA
The historic Avalon Casino on Catalina Island. In the off-season, the crowds are gone and the island is quiet. BY JOANNE DIBONA
B
eing born in December has its many challenges as far as birthday celebrations go. Your special day somehow gets swallowed up in the competition of an entire month of holiday revelry. This is why my husband Tony and I love to “escape” on travel for our birthdays, which are just a few days apart in early December.
JOANNE DIBONA
Island Spa Catalina is located in the historic El Encanto building.
Selecting a vacation getaway in the winter months can be a challenging task, as inclement weather and transportation delays are ever-present. As I was pondering where to celebrate Tony’s landmark birthday, fate intervened. I came across a photo of us, taken decades ago, holding hands on a summit overlooking the town of Avalon on Catalina Island. It was late October and the image showed us basking in a golden sun that cast a magical glow on the town’s picturesque harbor behind us. That did it; Avalon was where we would create our birthday memories. Catalina Express, a year-round ferry service to Avalon that departs from the California port cities of Dana Point, Long Beach and San Pedro, offers a free round-trip fare if you travel on your birthday (you have 30 days to return).
As is often the case on such trips, half the fun was getting there. During our one-hour sail across the channel, we smiled at frolicking dolphins leaping at our ship’s bow, marveled at a pod of gray whales breaching in the distance, chuckled at the antics of the vocal sea lions that make this region their home, and delighted in watching the many pelicans and numerous other sea birds demonstrate their fishing skills. We docked a mere two blocks from Avalon’s main street and easily wheeled our luggage to the Pavilion Hotel, a meticulously restored beachfront property nestled among landscaped tropical gardens. That afternoon, as we sipped wine and nibbled on appetizers during the hotel’s courtesy happy hour, it dawned on us: Catalina off-season is the perfect time for a visit. SEE CATALINA • E11
COOPERSTOWN: YES, IT’S BASEBALL BUT SO MUCH MORE Lush village in upstate New York has kept its charm amid the hoopla over sports history BY CHRIS ERSKINE Nothing I had read about this famed village prepared me for such a Shangri-La. The place is as lush as your lettuce bin and rests on the lower lip of a Dodgerblue lake graced with kayaks and canoes. Take away its vaunted National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, and you would still have an uncommonly alluring destination. In winter, Cooperstown is as dormant as baseball itself. Come April, its rolling lawns and surrounding orchards bounce back to life. Anglers ply Otsego Lake
and hikers pick blueberries. There are craft breweries and little creeks on which to fly-fish. But late September is perhaps its grandest season. With playoffs beckoning, baseball matters more; the apples are ripe and summer crowds have fled. Idyllic yet energized by a constant stream of baseball junkies, Cooperstown should be painted in pinstripes. James Fenimore Cooper's father founded this village in 1786; about 50 years later, Abner Doubleday laid the groundwork for a promising new sport. In 1939, the museum opened. Then, somehow, it’s as
though time stopped. Thank the gods, sports and otherwise. “Baseball is ballet without music,” sportscaster Ernie Harwell once said. Cooperstown is one of its grandest stages, with activities — baseball and otherwise — as plentiful as the surrounding sugar maples that are beginning to show their fall colors.
Scouting gems from history Strolling down Main Street here is like entering a Saturday Evening Post cover — with a few thousand other travelers. Visitors pack the center of town in summer, less so now — all the more reason for an autumn trip. Still, even on Baseball Hall of Fame induction week in late SEE COOPERSTOWN • E12
THISISCOOPERSTOWN.COM
Main Street in Cooperstown is packed with visitors in the summer months. Memorabilia shops offer trading cards, pins and even custom-made bats.