This morning at sunrise I was walking along the edge of Florida Canyon in Balboa Park when I noticed an airplane approaching San Diego International Airport.
As the FedEx cargo plane descended I captured this colorful series of photographs…
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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!
I’m not sure how to handle this material without sounding raunchy. But I’m going to say it:
A small work of street art at Wienerschnitzel’s drive-through in Imperial Beach shows a wiener with a woody at the beach.
Seriously!
In the background you can see the Imperial Beach pier, and the wiener, rising between buns, staring with an astonished expression out of one window, is transporting what appears to be a surfboard.
I don’t know when this artwork was created, or by whom. It’s faded and stained. This humorous fast food surf scene looks like a dirty impressionist painting.
Or perhaps my brain is addled. And this improbable vision is nothing but a crazy dream, the result of eating too many yummy chili cheese fries.
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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!
Here’s another batch of fascinating door photographs!
I have a little extra time indoors this wintry morning, so I’m going through some old photos in my computer. These images were collected in the past month or so during walks all around San Diego.
You might notice many of the ornate wooden doors are in a Mexican style that is popular in Southern California.
If you want to learn more about the above building, which sort of resembles a castle, click here.
The next four doors were all observed on Congress Street in Old Town. I really like these…
Finally, the last two doors can be found among the International Cottages in Balboa Park…
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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!
The other day I spotted this mural on the side of a State Farm office at Palm Avenue and Florence Street in Imperial Beach. It was painted recently by artist Milan Elise Finnie.
Its symbolism makes a statement about diversity in Imperial Beach, and how racism is never acceptable. The mural features the face of Gianna Floyd, daughter of George Floyd.
On the rear of the building, there are hand prints of many colors.
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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!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
If you’ve followed Cool San Diego Sights for a few years, you probably know I love to walk out on the G Street Pier. One can take fantastic photos of downtown San Diego, Coronado, and sailboats passing across the sparkling water. But my favorite thing to photograph is the pier’s crazy clutter!
Along one edge of the G Street Pier one can always find stacked lobster traps, colorful floats, tangled ropes, and piles of weathered objects used on commercial fishing boats.
Today as I walked along the Embarcadero I noticed the G Street Pier was open. So I walked out on it.
Look at all the squares, circles and rectangles my camera found! (Some triangles and a starfish, too!)
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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!
Along the San Diego River leaves are turning bright yellow, then brown. It’s December.
A couple of mornings last week I was waiting for a bus at the Fashion Valley Transit Center. To pass the time, I walked the very short distance to the new Town and Country river park.
I gazed down at still water from the pedestrian bridge. Through willow leaves I saw carpets of green duckweed. Ducks were floating quietly on silver and gold reflections.
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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!
Horton Plaza, the innovative outdoor shopping mall that was once a downtown San Diego attraction, has been stripped and gutted! Its redevelopment continues!
Six months ago I noted that demolition of parts of the old shopping mall had begun. I posted those photos and some information concerning the project here.
Well, take a look now!
UPDATE!
Several months later I took these photos. The southwest corner of Horton Plaza has risen and now appears quite different!
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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!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
A large patriotic mural paying tribute to firefighting heroes is visible to those driving down Main Street in Barrio Logan. It can be observed on the side of the FIRE ETC firefighter supply store.
Titled “America’s Heroes of 9-11,” the mural was painted in 2011 by Pete Carolan, a retired Navy SEAL.
To learn more about Pete Carolan’s career and accomplishments, check out his website here. I see he has painted an outdoor mural at the UDT-SEAL Museum, and “his many works…appear in such places as The Pentagon, our Nation’s Capitol and The White House.”
Pete Carolan got his start early in life as a lifeguard in Huntington Beach, California, became a world champion outrigger canoe paddler, and would eventually become a Navy frogman. He was chosen to be swim team leader in the recovery of the Apollo-13 capsule when it finally splashed down in the South Pacific.
He was the one who painted “Freddie the Frog” on the Sea King helicopter that recovered the astronauts. You can see “Freddie the Frog” briefly in the Apollo 13 movie starring Tom Hanks!
Should you visit the USS Midway Museum, check out their SH-3 Sea King helicopter. It, too, has been painted with Pete Carolan’s “Freddie the Frog!”
(You might notice I took these photographs late in the afternoon. I had to cope with glare produced by reflecting sunlight, plus a few trees across Main Street were casting their long shadows upon the artwork.)
UPDATE!
Here’s a photo I took at a later time when the sun and shadows weren’t being problematic…
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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!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
There’s a hidden garden in Balboa Park that almost nobody visits. It’s called the Administrative Courtyard.
The Administrative Courtyard is green, peaceful and very beautiful. There are fountains. There are arbors with vines and trees. To me, the most wonderful part of this courtyard garden are the gazebos at its corners. They give this special place personality. They are both cheerful and elegant, welcoming visitors with their bright tiled domes and nearby benches.
As I walked through and around the gazebos on a sunny winter’s day, I found many interesting contrasts of light and shadow for my camera.
If you’d like to find the hidden Administrative Courtyard, head to Balboa Park’s Inspiration Point, east of Park Boulevard, and walk behind the Developed Regional Parks Administration Building. That’s the handsome building that stands with its double towers atop a hill.
This corner of Balboa Park, including the Administration Building and nearby Veterans Museum (originally a military chapel), was once part of San Diego’s United States Naval Hospital, which was built in the early 1920s. When the hospital moved into Florida Canyon, Inspiration Point opened up its wonders to you and me.
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During my visit to Liberty Station in Point Loma yesterday I noted several works of public art that I hadn’t seen before.
The one I liked best is titled Tessellation #1. It’s a sculptural monolith with a bench for sitting in the shade of magnolia trees. This beautiful work of art, made of hand-cast tessellated concrete and wood timber, was created in September 2019 by local artist Jason X. Lane.
Tessellation #1 was installed in Liberty Station’s ARTS DISTRICT by the NTC Foundation in partnership with the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park. You can find it on the west side of the Dick Laub NTC Command Center building. (It’s located across from some sheltered seats where people are encouraged to interact with each other–more intriguing art brought to Liberty Station by Mingei that I blogged about here.)
I particularly love how Tessellation #1 fits within its surroundings. It’s like some sort of ancient throne or monument, discovered unexpectedly among living trees. To me the entire effect is strangely pleasing.
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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!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
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