Chewing on a piece of grass Walking down the road
As they say in the Golf tournaments its moving day again for us. Sadly, we had to leave the lovely apartment and head towards LA. We decided though to take a look at the beach first of all at Ventura.
The area around the pier all wanted silly money for parking for the day when we only wanted to be stay around 30 minutes so we drove further past them. We came to an area with street parking and walked the short distance to the beach. It was beautiful. The weather was hot but with a cooling breeze.
Immediately my knee complained on the very soft and deep sand, so rather than do any more damage I found a log to sit upon. Karen joined me as she was finding it difficult to balance on this sand with only one arm. We sat and watched some of the beach volleyball taking place which was of a decent standard.
This left Neil to go for a walk on the beach on his own. We felt really sad that he didn’t have anyone to share the experience with and was stuck with a couple of currently broken old codgers for company.
Then we drove to the Ronald Reagan Memorial Library. This was Neil’s choice and I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Each President is entitled to have a library built in their honour once they leave office. I was hoping they would have some good books to borrow although I wasn’t sure when I would get back to return them.
Of course, in reality it isn’t that sort of library. It is primarily somewhere to keep all their correspondence and documents as a record. There is also a museum dedicated to their life.
Ronnie had selected a lovely site high in the California Hills. Karen & I were both disappointed in that when we asked for the cheaper Senior tickets (age 62 and older) that we weren’t challenged and got the discount.
All of the staff we encountered were so lovely and could not have been more helpful. The museum itself was extremely interesting. In the UK, Ronnie had always been portrayed as a bungling actor who somehow ended up as President. The truth was far from that. He had been active in politics since the early 60’s and had always spoke of his own well formed sometimes radical policies he wanted to see pursued. I became impressed by some of the things he had enacted and of the man himself. He seemed to have been very warm and approachable as well.
We were treated to a hologram version of him welcoming us as we entered.
Of course, the museum was never going to portray any negative sides to him but he does in retrospect seem to have taken the right approach at the time with the Russians etc at the time. It was telling that Gorbachev himself attended his funeral years later.
There had been an addition added to the museum which now housed both Air Force One and Marine One. We went aboard both but were not allowed to take photos as it was an opportunity for them to take ‘souvenir’ photos of you that you could purchase. We declined gracefully.
There was a café which was very efficient and surprisingly cheap so we had some lunch, or rather Karen & I did but Neil was hoping for an In/Out Burger on the next drive. He was to be disappointed as we only passed one and that was on the wrong side of a 6 lane freeway.
Before we left, we walked to pay our respects at Ronnie & Nancy gravesites.
As we started the drive out of the complex, I started to feel peculiar and thought for a moment I was going to pass out for no reason. I stopped the car but the feeling quickly passed.
Thinking no more of it we decided to head to Malibu to have a wander. It was busy but we found a secure car park which cost $9 and walked to the Pier. Walking along I suddenly felt faint yet again and had to sit down. The world was going fuzzy around me and I couldn’t hear anything. The feeling seemed to start in my stomach. Karen said I went extremely white and then hot and clammy. Within 2 minutes I felt normal again. Most peculiar.
The Pier was busy but made for a pleasant walk in the sunshine. We found a bench half way along and took in the scenes for a while. It was lovely.
Back at the car we punched into the Navigation System our hotel called The Historic Hollywood Hotel and finally set off to Hollywood Baby!
The Hotel was easy to find and we were soon checked in. The rooms were really nice and the whole place had a touch of old-time class about it. The secure car park was $18 per day but even I felt that wasn’t bad for where we were. The only alternative would have been to find street parking.
The plan was to drive to CityWalk to get some food after we had settled in but in the lift back down to the car, I felt faint again. I decided that I really shouldn’t be driving anymore today and Neil said he wasn’t keen, so as the Hotel had a really nice-looking restaurant with outside patio we decided to stay here instead.
It was a good call as the food was fine and it was lovely to start with sitting outside but then got a little chilly. I had one more strange episode sitting there.
Back in our room Neil tried to get Netflix on the TV before giving up and going back to his room. I was asleep within 10 minutes of him leaving.
We are not 100% sure what caused my fainting feeling today. They have happened a few times in the past over the years and have either been the early onset of a virus or my blood pressure tablets working too well. However, I wondered this time if it a mixture of the painkillers I have been taking combining with my other daily medication. I have not taken painkillers for such a prolonged period before. I was also though very tired as we have had little downtime. I decided to try not taking both the painkillers and the blood pressure tablets tomorrow to see if that helps.
