A blue surfer made of LEGO bricks is riding a huge wave over six colorful Christmas trees in Balboa Park.
Seriously!
You can find this very creative holiday display inside the Fleet Science Center, in its theater lobby.
The surfer sculpture is titled Wave Of Illumination. The 15,428 LEGO bricks were assembled by artist Nathan Sawaya. The multi-colored Christmas trees add a delightful touch during this Holiday Season!
…
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!
It’s easy to explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag. There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
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!
When I stepped into the Coronado Community Center yesterday, I was pleased to encounter beautiful works of art. The first that I’ll share is titled 92118 – Art by the Numbers.
The community’s five digit zip code is painted on five wood boards in classic postcard fashion, with iconic Coronado sights inside each number, and the words: Somewhere over the Rainbow…Dreams really do come true!
Why over the rainbow? During many winters The Wonderful Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum rented a Coronado house where he wrote several Oz novels. His Emerald City, it is said, was inspired by the architecture of the Hotel del Coronado.
As the artwork’s plaque explains, 92118 – Art by the Numbers was a project involving the Coronado High School Visual Arts Department. The colorful panels were completed by members of the public during Coronado’s big 92118 Day Celebration.
The iconic Hotel del Coronado.Sailboats on the water, and the long, curving Coronado Bridge across San Diego Bay.
…
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!
It’s easy to explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag. There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
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!
In Coronado, at the water’s edge in Glorietta Bay Park, just south of the boat ramp, stands The Naked Warrior. South of the sculpture and its nearby park benches one can see Naval Amphibious Base Coronado stretching into San Diego Bay.
Beneath the feet of the bronze sculpture is a plaque and the words FIRST ASHORE.
THE NAKED WARRIOR
Artist: John Seward Johnson II
THIS WORLD WAR II COMBAT SWIMMER COMMEMORATES THE U.S. NAVY’S UNDERWATER DEMOLITION (UDT) AND SEA, AIR AND LAND (SEAL) TEAMS. THEY HAVE TRAINED AND HAVE BEEN BASED IN CORONADO SINCE 1946. THESE “NAKED WARRIORS” SWAM UNARMED ONTO HEAVILY DEFENDED ENEMY BEACHES WITH EXPLOSIVES TO CLEAR THE WAY FOR AMPHIBIOUS LANDINGS, HENCE THEIR MOTTO “FIRST ASHORE.” THE CONCRETE “SCULLY” ON WHICH THIS FROGMAN STANDS IS TYPICAL OF THE UNDERWATER OBSTACLES THEY RISKED THEIR LIVES TO DESTROY. THEIR LEGACY OF “NEVER QUIT,” WHILE EXECUTING THE MOST DIFFICULT MILITARY MISSIONS FOR OUR COUNTRY, IS STILL IMBUED IN EVERY NAVY SEAL WHOSE UNIFORM BEARS THE NAVAL SPECIAL WARFARE TRIDENT INSIGNIA. ON THE BEACHES JUST SOUTH OF THIS SITE, BASIC UNDERWATER DEMOLITION/SEAL TRAINING (BUD/S) GOES ON YEAR ROUND. THE SAILORS WHO COMPLETE BUD/S GO ON TO ADVANCED TRAINING AND ARE THEN ASSIGNED TO U.S. NAVY SEAL TEAMS, BECOMING THE ELITE WARRIORS OUR COUNTRY RELIES UPON FOR COMPLEX AND NO-FAIL SPECIAL OPERATIONS MISSIONS WORLDWIDE.
DONATED TO THE CITY OF CORONADO BY
THE NATIONAL NAVY UDT-SEAL MUSEUM
THE NAVY SEAL FOUNDATION
DEDICATED NOVEMBER 11, 2016
…
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!
It’s easy to explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag. There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
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!
As one might expect, beautiful holiday decorations surround the elegant Hotel del Coronado this year. The world-famous Victorian beach resort always seems to go all out to make guests and more casual visitors like me feel special.
Let’s walk around the Hotel Del and look at Christmas trees, wreaths, festive lights, the seasonal ice rink, and even two sand sculptures on the nearby beach!
(The only imperfection I observed is a few of the poinsettias in the next photo had been knocked or blown over.)
…
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!
It’s easy to explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag. There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
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 know the friendly gentleman who plays the didgeridoo in Balboa Park? That’s Mitchell Walker.
He loves astronomy. He’s super creative. He never stops dreaming. That’s how he managed to shrink a volume of space 100 light-years across and fit it inside a plexiglass cube!
Mitchell’s one-of-a-kind, incredible Stellarium shows all of the stars within 50 light-years of the sun, placed in their correct spatial positions. That makes 166 stars in our stellar neighborhood. (Mitchell is now playfully calling his unique cube SITH–Stars in the ‘Hood!)
The colors of his tiny illuminated stars are based on spectral classification: the Morgan-Keenan system. Press a button and you hear a recording made by Mitchell describing his Stellarium.
I first blogged about The Great Stellarium Project over three years ago. You can see a smiling Mitchell and learn more about his brilliant creation here.
Since then modifications have been made to the Stellarium, including a visible ultraviolet light.
Today I heard that more improvements are coming!
During Stars in the Park this evening, Mitchell showed me his detailed plan to have each star light up individually with a touch of a button. That way the position of a particular star can be seen in relation to others and to our sun.
Mitchell starts with a dream. Then he makes it come true.
What are your dreams?
…
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!
It’s easy to explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag. There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
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 planet Mars vanished from San Diego’s night sky early this evening!
Members of the San Diego Astronomy Association had telescopes trained on the Red Planet near the Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park when it disappeared!
But nobody seemed in the least distressed.
That’s because those gazing skyward understood the moon in its orbit around the Earth had begun to pass “over” much more distant Mars, in what is called a lunar occultation of Mars.
Random people walking through Balboa Park came up and were invited to peer through the telescopes. At times the instruments were aimed at the planet Jupiter and its four largest moons that were made plainly visible: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.
Families and kids looked into space with a sense of wonder. Many then entered the Fleet Science Center to view the monthly planetarium show The Sky Tonight, where we saw the latest jaw-dropping images from the James Webb Space Telescope.
When the presentation ended an hour later, and we all went outside, Mars had returned!
The next image was captured by my small camera a few minutes before the lunar occultation of Mars. I set it on maximum zoom.
You can’t see the moon’s craters, but you can see fuzzy little red Mars!
…
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!
It’s easy to explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag. There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
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 came upon photographs of San Diego’s historic Casa de Estudillo that are nearly a century old. I thought you might enjoy them.
These images of the Jose Antonio Estudillo House were captured in 1936 and 1937 by architectural photographer Henry F. Withey for the Historic American Buildings Survey. A product of the Heritage Documentation Program of the U.S. National Park Service, the photos are in the public domain.
It’s interesting to see that long ago streets intersected near one corner of the house: Mason Street and San Diego Avenue. Today the Casa de Estudillo museum stands in the middle of Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, and the streets you see in these photographs have become wide walkways filled with tourists.
The Casa de Estudillo was built in 1827. Back in the 1930s tourists were visiting the large old adobe casa, just as they do today. The painted Ramona’s Marriage Place sign you see in the above photo was meant to attract those motoring by. Ramona in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was an immensely popular novel.
You can read why Casa de Estudillo was called Ramona’s Marriage Place by clicking here. You can also see the present-day interior of Casa de Estudillo here and here!
…
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!
It’s easy to explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag. There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
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!
City Heights Square Mini Park opened at 4061 43rd Street in 2014. It’s a beautiful urban refuge where neighbors can talk, relax, read, eat lunch, play a game of checkers or chess.
The pocket park features trees, ample sunshine and public art, including a large mural that is alive with many faces.
The vast tile mural is a visual story best read by wandering eyes. The story presents momentary scenes in the life of the community.
…
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!
It’s easy to explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag. There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
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 huge, detailed train layouts are amazing by themselves, but during the Holiday Season, additional surprises await around the museum!
There are beautiful Christmas trees, a talking, animatronic Santa to excite kids, and tiny holiday scenes placed in several of the scale train layouts.
But by far the most magic can be experienced in the Toy Train Gallery!
In the Toy Train Gallery, young and old gaze wide-eyed at a lively city filled with holiday figures and bright decorations. Trains illuminated with colored Christmas lights pass through happy winter scenes. Snowmen and Christmas trees perch on rooftops. It like a dream world one might see in a snow globe–filled with life and activity!
In addition, the Toy Train Gallery’s walls are filled with holiday artwork that will make old-timers nostalgic for years gone by.
A few photos provide a small taste…
…
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!
It’s easy to explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag. There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
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!
Inspired people continue to bring positive change to National City!
I saw another example of this positive change during my last South Bay walk. A beautiful mural depicting a loving mother and child now appears on one side of Cozine’s Liquor and Deli.
I discovered the mural was created by the young artists of A Reason To Survive (ARTS). The artwork is part of their Market Makeover program!
With the help of various organizations, certain liquor stores around National City now offer fresh, nutritious fruits and vegetables, plus positive artwork that encourages healthy living!
Early this year I blogged about another liquor store transformation in National City. I also provided more information about this community initiative. Read more by clicking here!
And here’s another corner store in National City that was brightened by the youth of A Reason to Survive!
Look what I also discovered while walking along…
Welcome to National City is painted boldly across the parking lot from the Cozine’s Liquor and Deli mural.
Enter National City via Civic Center Drive and you’ll see it!
…
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!
It’s easy to explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag. There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
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! 