A wall in San Diego’s North Park neighborhood encourages creative people to Use Your Voice. Four small murals dedicated to artivism can be viewed on the west side of Nomad Donuts. Look north up Illinois Street from University Avenue and you’ll spot these artworks.
Use Your Voice is a project of Sounding Boards. Learn more about their past projects and mission by clicking here.
This special wall will host rotating murals. The first artists, whose work you see above, are Josue Baltezar, Kenda Francis, Mary Jhun, and Jon Pucci.
Previously, a very different mural decorated this space! See it here!
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An amazing new museum had its Grand Opening at Liberty Station today! The Nautical History Gallery & Museum is jam-packed with carefully constructed displays, providing visitors with the U.S. Navy History Experience, 1775-1945.
Museum artist and curator Joe Frangiosa, Jr. has served in both the Navy and Marines. By carefully studying historical photographs, he has been able to craft very realistic miniature ship models. Many of his detailed models can be viewed in the museum’s exhibits, which cover different periods of U.S. Navy history.
The Nautical History Gallery & Museum is located in Room 108 of Liberty Station’s old Command Center. Joe has created and amassed so many artifacts concerning naval history that only a portion of his collection is on display. There’s so much to absorb, a curious visitor could spend a good long time looking at it all!
Visitors to the one-room museum can also view a historical video and Joe’s workshop area, where you might see him concentrating on another model!
If you are interested in military history, model making or the U.S. Navy, this remarkable museum is a must see. If, like me, you are fascinated by ships, the evolution of technology and human history, you’ll probably enjoy it, too!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Famous anchorman Ron Burgundy has surfaced in San Diego! His perfectly coiffed hair has risen from the deep . . . among dolphins!
Why did he jump into the water? Perhaps diving into the ocean seemed more heroic than leaping into a bear pen at the zoo. Fortunately his hair remains intact.
This fun mural can be found in Point Loma. Perhaps you’ve seen it on Midway Drive, south of Rosecrans Street, on the side of Hi Auto Repair. It was painted last September by AQUA ONE ART!
Those who say Ron Burgundy is all wet are proven correct.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Do you love Cabrillo National Monument? Would you like to help build a spectacular hiking trail that will connect the whale watching overlook to the tide pools 400 feet below?
You can become a trailblazer!
The trail’s construction has begun, but there’s more to do. And additional donations are necessary. As you can see from an information sign inside the Visitor Center, quite a lot of money had been raised by the Cabrillo National Monument Foundation already.
I asked a park ranger about this project. Several phases are completed, including archaeological surveys and removal of vegetation that will be replanted elsewhere in the park.
The next photo shows where the new trail will begin, just beyond the whale watching overlook. It will branch off from the short existing trail that leads down to a pair of World War II bunkers.
And my final photo shows the new trail’s destination: the Cabrillo National Monument tide pools!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Check out these three cool murals in North Park! They’re painted on the parking lot side of the Queen Bee’s Art and Cultural Center building, north of University Avenue off Ohio Street.
The three murals, from left to right, depict a graffiti-style North Park, The Beatles’ yellow submarine, and cosmic mandalas with music-loving bees!
Around the corner, at the entrance to Queen Bee’s, you’ll find more fun artwork…
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
It’s late January. Balboa Park’s ornamental pear trees are in full bloom!
Like a dream, or an Impressionist painting, clouds of white flowers now fill El Prado. The ornamental pears in both Plaza de Panama and Plaza de Balboa are putting on their winter show!
Delicate blossoms fluttering down from the trees appeared to me like gently falling snowflakes…
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Walk down Mule Hill Trail at the south end of Escondido and you’ll find yourself stepping into history.
A while back I blogged about the forgotten town of Bernardo. A hundred years ago it was located in farmland near this trail, prior to the creation of Lake Hodges.
Down this same trail information signs mark the location of Mule Hill, where a skirmish took place during the Mexican-American War.
Seeking shelter among rocky outcroppings, General Kearny established a defensive position against pursuing Californios, as his U.S. Dragoons retreated toward San Diego after the Battle of San Pasqual.
The precise location of this skirmish was in debate for many years. Here are some interestingarticles.
Today, after a short, easy walk south down Mule Hill Trail, you’ll see the outcroppings rising above several signs. You can find the wide dirt trail just east of Interstate 15, off Bear Valley Parkway, before Beethoven Drive.
Beginning south down Mule Hill Trail, part of the San Dieguito River Park.
Off to the right near river trees, a solitary sign beckons.
Start of the Engagement, December 7, 1846
“Late in the evening, when we had arrived within about four hundred yards of the water where we intended to camp, they charged us, coming on in two bodies and compelling us to retreat to a pile of rocks about two hundred yards away on our left . . . ” source–Kit Carson’s Autobiography
Continuing our walk south. Jumbled boulders can be seen on the hill to our left.
We’ve arrived at three signs near a pair of rock outcroppings that figure in the early history of San Diego. The signs explain what happened here at Mule Hill.
Mule Hill Standoff
On December 7, the American soldiers, sailors and volunteers under command of Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny, were attacked from the rear by Mexican forces 250 yards northwest of this location…
The Mexican forces recruited for the defense of their homeland were led by Captain Andres Pico . . . The forces were primarily comprised of Californios, residents of California at that time who descended from Mexican and Spanish colonialists…
The Americans were short of food and resorted to eating their mules, hence the name “Mule Hill” for this site…
…Navy Lieutenant Edward Beale volunteered to sneak through the Mexican lines to seek help from San Diego, and he asked that army scout Kit Carson go with him.
Standoff Continues
On December 8, after the sun had set, Beale, Carson and a Native American (identity unknown to us) sneaked through three lines of Mexican sentries…Nearing San Diego, they separated…The Native American arrived in San Diego first…
On December 9, with little food, water or supplies and a number of wounded men, General Kearny made the decision to fight his way to San Diego…
On December 10, Sergeant John Cox died and was buried at Mule Hill…
On December 11… A relief column of 100 sailors and 80 marines, sent by Commodore Robert Stockton, had arrived. The Mexican force, now outnumbered, withdrew. Later that morning the Americans left Mule Hill and marched to what is now Old Town, San Diego, thus completing a 2,000 mile march from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
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One of the display cases features books that were published in San Diego a century ago–in the 1920s and 1930s.
When I think of publishing in San Diego, the name Harcourt Brace Jovanovich immediately comes to mind. One of the world’s most important publishers made downtown San Diego their home for many years.
But have you heard of Torrey Pines Press, Hillcrest Publishing Company and the San Diego Printing Company? They and others were producing books in our city a century ago. Even Arrowhead Spring Water Distributors was part of the action!
The San Diego Library maintains a collection of books published or printed in San Diego. It’s called the Wilmer B. Shields Collection. It’s located inside the Marilyn and Gene Marx Special Collections Center on the Central Library’s 9th floor.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Cool San Diego Sights! 