JPL Pasadena: the Huntington-Sheraton
[image from a “Hotel-Letter” form]
Nicky had come on the trip with me and a couple of odd things occurred. Not wanting to hire a car Nicky asked at the Hotel reception about buses and they didn’t know of any. It turned out that the LA RTD (Rapid Transit District) ran a regular service into LA from right out outside the Hotel, but clearly no guests had ever asked before!
Also, when we were leaving, we discovered that one of a set of two dice (which we used to play a French dice game) was missing from the top drawer of the side table. That made us realise that a few other other items, mainly of no value, were missing from the same drawer. It seemed like someone had just grabbed a random selection of the contents.
However a missing necklace had some sentimental value so we reported the theft to the reception desk, and they insisted in involving the police. A young California motorcycle cop, blonde with mirror “shades”, met us in the hotel car park. Not only did we had to report this rather strange list of stolen items to him, but then, when he asked for our ages I didn’t know mine! In the UK you would be asked your date of birth, which I could have told him instantly. Our suave Californian cop was becoming rather exasperated with us!
According to Wikipedia, the hotel failed earthquake resilience tests in 1985 and the main building was closed down and eventually demonlished. However it has since been rebuilt in a similar style so my “Hotel California” still exists but in more modern construction!
