Travel

Lane Victory

lane-victory.jpgAt the conclusion of our romantic excursion to Catalina Island, we passed the Lane Victory berth which is next door to the Catalina Terminal in San Pedro. We took a day cruise on the Lane, which is a National Historic Landmark; the cruise left San Pedro and steamed across the Catalina Channel and back. Unfortunately, I lost the photographic record when I had a disk crash. We’ll make it a point to take the cruise again so we can get more pictures. Damsel snapped this photo of the superstructure as we passed the Lane. Click for big.

Wikipedia has this historic account of the Lane Victory:

SS Lane Victory is a Second World War Victory ship which is preserved as a museum ship in the San Pedro area of Los Angeles, California. As a rare surviving Victory ship, it is a U.S. National Historic Landmark.

She was named after Lane College, which was established as a high school for black youths in 1882 by Isaac Lane, a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Jackson, Tennessee. The school grew into a prominent liberal arts college.

The Lane Victory was built by the California Shipbuilding Corporation in Los Angeles, California and launched on May 31, 1945. On her first voyage, June 27, 1945, Lane Victory carried supplies in the Pacific. She was operated by the American President Lines.

In 1950 the Lane Victory was used to evacuate Korean civilians and U.N. personnel at Wonsan, North Korea during the Korean War. The ship also saw duty during the Vietnam War. In 1970, she was placed in the reserve fleet. Because of her excellent condition, the Maritime Administration decided to set aside the Lane Victory for preservation.

View from the Wrigley Memorial

When we hiked up Avalon Canyon to the Wrigley Memorial, we climbed up the stairs to the top deck and enjoyed the view looking back toward Avalon. It wasn’t a nice sunny day, but the cloud cover kept us cool during the hike and while climbing the stairs. The view down the canyon is very pleasant to see, even on a mostly cloudy day.

You can read more about the Memorial in this post.

Click on the image below for larger view.

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Canyonlands Panorama

These bizarre towers sculpted by nature are in South Canyonlands National Park. This canyon is the trailhead for the hike to the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers, just about five miles from this Southern Utah location. At the far right extremity of this panorama, you can see the Damsel as she prepares to set up for her next photographic masterpiece.

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Click to view in the image viewer full-size.

The West Side of the Casino

I took this shot of the famous Catalina Casino from the Descanso Beach side – a side not regularly seen since this is not visible in the town of Avalon. Click for the big picture.

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Rainbow’s End

Last July, we were on our vacation in Southern Utah near the South Entrance to Canyonlands National Park when this rainbow appeared ahead of us. We had just finished our visit to the park and were en route to our next destination and a relaxing evening in a resort hotel near Canyon de Chelly.

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Click for bigger image.

Avalon Chime Tower

chime-tower.jpgThe Avalon Chime Tower still chimes at fifteen minute intervals from eight o’clock in the morning until eight-thirty in the evening. While the chimes are charming, the tower facility, itself, could use a little tender loving care.

We hiked up to the tower and had an up-close look. The building is missing some roofing tiles although the decorative Catalina tiles look pretty good. The building is cracked in several places, the door on the west side needs repair and the area around the tower is a bit overgrown.

Now, I don’t know how the building gets its financial support nor do I want to take any supporters to task, but it is such a beautiful and historic instrument and it deserves better. From a distance, however, the chime tower is as charming as ever.

I took this photo with my Canon EOS and telephoto lens from the balcony of our hotel room. Click on the thumbnail above for full-size in the viewer.

The Catalina Casino – An Art Deco Treasure

art-deco-mermaid.jpgThe Casino in Avalon, CA. on Catalina Island, is truly one of the world’s greatest Art Deco treasures. The mermaid over the box office (see a closer image here) has become an icon associated with Avalon – her image appears on event posters all over town and on the mainland in the terminals.

Cap’n Bob captured this vertical panorama of the mermaid while standing in the loggia at the entrance to the theater and ballroom. He combined three images to render this top-to-bottom view of the mural and box office. Click on her for the really big version – use the scroll bars to see the entire image.

More about the Casino’s murals from LAMurals.org:

Date
1929

Location
The Casino’s Avalon Theatre
1 Casino Way
Avalon

Media Notes
Designed by John Gabriel Beckman. Executed by Emil Kosa. Jr., Aloyous Bohnen, Vyseled Ulianoff, Alexander Kiss, Eugene de Goncz.

Description
Nine panels of underwater marine life including a mermaid encircle the loggia’s inside walls. They are painted directly on the concrete.

Around the dome, within the auditorium in an Art Deco style, are local flora and fauna, scenes of early California, and abstract designs. They were painted on a burlap-like material with extra-fine ground pigments in a flatene medium (used as a binder by printers). On a seashell carried by seahorses, Venus rises from the the waves. She is the central figure above the proscenium arch. Inside the arch are other figures as well as a map of Catalina.

More about the Casino’s description and history from Away.com:

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