We started the day with a visit to Elise' sister at a nearby nursing home. She is limited to a wheelchair, is delusional and somewhat paranoid, and is difficult to understand because she speaks in such a weak voice. She had some doubts about whether or not we were who we said we were and she cut our visit short after about 15 minutes. Very sad.
From here we went to the beach at Santa Monica. The most interesting thing there was just as sad or even moreso in a less personal way. A peace group had planted over 4,000 crosses as well as a few stars of David and Muslim Crescents in the sand as a memorial to those Americans who had been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. There were also pictures of some of the wounded wearing various prostheses for missing arms or legs, and there was a sign which noted that more than one million Iraqis had been killed and that if there were crosses for each of them, they would fill the entire beach.
On a more cheerful note we then walked along Third Street which is a walking street with major stores on both sides and various works of art and street performers in the street itself. The best of the street performers were a flautist and a young woman singer with a lovely voice. My favorite work of art was a fifteen foot long dinosaur covered with ivy.
On the way there, we also drove by Beverly Hills, home of the rich and famous. I was sorry I didn't have my camera with me. There was a homeless person on a bench resting right next to the wall of one of the many mansions in Beverly Hills. The contrast would have made a very dramatic picture.
In the evening Elise and I went for a walk on Sunset Boulevard near our motel and stopped in at a huge dollar store the size of a large supermarket and picked up almost all of the food supplies for the next leg of our trip, a couple frozen dinners, which we ate back at the motel, and a new hat for me.
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