Mum · Rhona Burslem
How did you experience neil armstrongs first steps on the moon?
When the moon landing took place on July 20.1969 I was firstly staying at the Newport Beach Hotel in California and then flying from Los Angeles Back to Vancouver via Seattle. I remember having the awesome breakfast buffet at the hotel and then taking the helicopter connection to LAX. Needless to say for all in this luxury I was indebted to my wonderful Aunt Kay who lived in San Francisco. I travelled with Ann, the friend I came from England with... we had taken our summer vacation allowance and headed from Vancouver to Victoria.
From there on the Coho - yes, the Coho even back then, to Port Angeles where we took a Greyhound bus tour that took us to the Olympic Rain Forest and out to the Pacific Beaches. It then headed us back and over the Hood Canal Bridge to Seattle, where we explored out to the Space Needle and stayed at the YMCA. We flew from Seattle to San Francisco and were met there by Aunt Kay's chauffeur in the Rolls Royce and taken to their home. You can imagine we were more than impressed!
Aunt Kay took us all around San Francisco and we lunched at the top of Nob Hill at the Fairmont Hotel. We were wined and dined at a fancy Hawaiian restaurant in the evening and then driven out to stay at the farm in Napa the next day where we celebrated Kjell's 50th birthday. That was so beautiful with all the race horses grazing...actually now I think about it we were also taken to the race course in San Francisco too and saw Silky Sullivan, Kjell's horse win some race or other........
After that we flew down to LA and went to Disneyland, staying at the Disneyland Hotel, all courtesy of Aunt Kay. She drove us around Hollywood and took us for lunch to the Bel Air Hotel and then we visited some family ( Kjell's brother I think) who lived in a gorgeous house right up in the hills with a view over to the Hollywood Bowl. In the evening we went to the Hollywood Bowl to a ballet and sat in the next box to Anne Bancroft. After all this we were taken to the Newport Beach Hotel to relax and recover! and finally on back home to Vancouver, on July 20th... which is where this tale started.
I remember seeing all the final moments before the moon landing on screens in the airport and fhe announcement over the PA enroute to Seattle that the Eagle had landed. There was massive excitement. The whole time had quite a surreal feeling for me, all of the experiences we had which were quite beyond anything I could ever have imagined and then topped off by men landing on the moon.... an amazing time.