The Weiner Dog Races at the 2021 La Mesa Oktoberfest made for an exciting spectator sport. The crowd cheered. Dog athletes raced down a short track into the outstretched arms of loved ones. Some dogs became confused in all the excitement and ran the wrong way. Love can do that.
One race saw all four contestants wander off in different directions, tails wagging. The judges were forgiving and restarted that one.
The Weiner Dog Races were brought to La Mesa Oktoberfest by the Dackeldorf Dachshund Village. There was also a doggie fashion show, which I missed.
Enjoy some photos that show love wins every time. Even if the furry arrival is a bit tardy.
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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!
Today’s the final day of 2021 La Mesa Oktoberfest. I rode the trolley to the Village of La Mesa as the free street festival opened and quickly found lots of food, smiles and fun!
The Bratwurst was delectable. The garlic fries were yummy. The German oompah music was infectious. Vendors had all sorts of artsy and inventive wares. The Weiner Dog Races were hilarious. (So much fun, in fact, that a separate blog post concerning the races is coming up!) The three beer gardens and big Ferris wheel were attracting huge crowds. There was fun stuff to do and see in every direction.
My favorite part of Oktoberfest, however, is the smiles.
Of course I’m going to promote a fellow writer. Particularly one who has written an inspirational book full of daily positive messages that are like poetry, and who opened the pages to share words with me concerning October 3. John L. Wagner is the author of Daily Ripples and you can find his book here!
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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!
A variety of electric vehicles are on display today at the Broadway Pier in downtown San Diego. The public event is sponsored by SDG&E and Nissan.
I walked out on the pier this morning to check out some beautiful cars, assembled by members of the Electric Vehicle Association of San Diego for the occasion. I saw many models by leading auto makers.
I’ve never driven an electric car. When I spoke to a representative of the Electric Vehicle Association, I learned they’re actually more fun to drive because they’re extremely responsive. Some models now have an over a three hundred mile range, and consequently the owner can charge them easily overnight at home without worrying about locating a recharging station.
She believes in ten years most new vehicles on the road will be electric!
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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!
A very cool Car and Bike Show was held this afternoon in City Heights!
The event took place in the outdoor community gathering place on University Avenue just east of Interstate 15. If you’ve ever driven by, you’ve probably noticed all the sculptures and murals and the circus tent. Yes, that place!
My friends at Love City Heights put on this show, which featured not only amazing cars and bikes, but vendors and artists and food and music and a bunch of great people!
I took photos as I walked around enjoying myself. Read the captions!
Perfect day for a car show in City Heights! (Okay, the weather was a bit hot.)Cool cars parked near some outdoor sculptures that were created earlier this year by City Heights residents.Check out the awesome new mural on a shipping container painted yesterday by GMONIK!One of my favorites!Are these the coolest bikes you’ve ever seen, or what?The San Diego County Bicycle Coalition was present, fixing up bikes! They have workshop in a corner of this City Heights lot.Smiles appear at the KNSJ radio table!All sort of crafts were for sale by vendors under the outdoor Fern Street Circus tent.You see that beautiful blue pillow by The Urban Art Shop? It’s mine now! (According to their website, they are located at 4201 University Avenue, San Diego, CA 92105, United States, Northern American Continent, Earth, Solar System, Orion Arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Virgo Supercluster, Universe, Third Dimension.)These smiling faces belong to the Speeding Crow Pressing Co. They make custom apparel and goods!Artwork created by Andrew Greyeyes. He has also painted murals in City Heights!
If you want to see two fun, very colorful City Heights murals painted by Andrew Greyeyes, click here and here!
A cool Car and Bike Show (and a new GMONIK mural) comes to City Heights!
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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!
You can see this bold new artwork on University Avenue, just east of Interstate 15, in an outdoor space where a variety of community events are held. It’s a fierce new mural on a shipping container painted by artist GMONIK!
If you’ve driven through City Heights, it’s likely you’ve seen other colorful art by GMONIK. Check out past photographs here and here.
I spied this brand new mural during a visit to the Car and Bike Show held at this location today. I’ll be sharing pics of that cool event shortly!
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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!
When I arrived at the 2021 Balboa Park Pow Wow this afternoon, the Inter-Tribal Dancing was just beginning.
According to the event’s flyer, the Balboa Park Pow Wow, a project of the San Diego American Indian Health Center, is about dancing for healing and honoring heritage. It’s taking place this weekend (both Saturday and Sunday) at the corner of Park Boulevard and Presidents Way.
I missed the earlier Aztec Dancers and Bird Singing, but I did experience what you’ll see in the following photographs.
The rhythmic beat of the drums was like a steady heartbeat. As I watched the different dancers, young and old, I saw eyes filled with dedication and pride. And I saw smiles like sunshine, 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!
Many cool events could be experienced in San Diego five years ago!
Looking back at photographs I took in October 2016, I see an amazing Maker Faire was held in Balboa Park, and a Festa with lots of chalk art was held in Little Italy.
Five year ago I also enjoyed two very unique museum exhibits, took a walk through beautiful Los Peñasquitos Canyon, and had my mind blown during a special tour aboard an oceanographic research vessel!
If you’d like to see lots of colorful photos, click the links that are coming up!
Click the following links to revisit fun old blog posts!
This blog now features thousands of photos around San Diego! Are you curious? There’s lots of cool stuff to check out!
Here’s the Cool San Diego Sights main page, where you can read the most current blog posts. If you’re using a phone or small mobile device, click those three parallel lines up at the top–that opens up my website’s sidebar, where you’ll see the most popular posts, a search box, and more!
To enjoy future posts, you can also “like” Cool San Diego Sights on Facebook or follow me on Twitter.
Oh, and by the way, see my photograph above? Yes! Nikigator has made its long-awaited return!
Nikigator stands once again outside the front entrance of the recently reopened, beautifully renovated Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park. Wouldn’t it be fun to sit on that!
While I’m mentioning the Mingei, families should definitely head inside. The ground floor is now free to everyone, whatever your age. And one big display case holds all sorts of craft toys from around the world! Another contains carousel horses!
And one more thing. If your kids haven’t been to the San Diego Model Railroad Museum in Balboa Park, they are missing out on some of the most incredible, spectacular toy train layouts anywhere in the world! And it’s free in October for kids, too!
Click here for all the museums and attractions that are participating this month in Kids Free San Diego!
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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!
Bronze plaques near the foot of the Imperial Beach Pier recall the legendary slough surfers who once trekked from far and wide to the Tijuana Sloughs, where the Tijuana River meets the Pacific Ocean, just north of the Mexican border.
During much of the 20th century, the Tijuana Sloughs was considered the preeminent big surf break in California. There’s a great article concerning the history and geology of the Sloughs here.
If you walk around Portwood Pier Plaza at the foot of the IB Pier, you’ll see a bunch of colorful surfboard benches where you can rest and gaze out across the beach. Look down and you’ll discover plaques next to each bench.
The plaques recall those who rode the big waves at the Tijuana Sloughs and honor bits of Imperial Beach surfing history.
Surfhenge public art welcomes people to the Imperial Beach Pier and Portwood Pier Plaza. The plaza is located next to the beach between Surfhenge and the lifeguard tower to the south.Visiting slough surfers 1940’s.Regular slough surfers 1940’s and 1950’s.Most of California’s finest surfers were lifeguards at some stage in their careers…Dean of the Sloughs. In 1937 the Sloughs were first surfed by the legendary waterman Dempsey Holder. Over the years surfers from all over California showed up at Dempsey’s lifeguard station at the end of Palm Avenue.Visiting slough surfers 1950’s.Father of the Modern Surfboard. In the 1940’s Bob Simmons applied the principles of hydrodynamics to surfboard design and forever changed the sport of surfing. In 1950 he moved to Imperial Beach.…From 1930 to 1950 the total number of California surfers grew from under 70 to over 1500.In the 1940’s surfers from all over Southern California made the journey to what is now Imperial Beach to surf the then-known biggest waves off the continental United States.The Tijuana Sloughs became the testing ground for mainlanders going to Hawai’i. Before Malibu, San Onofre and Windansea groups surfed Makaha and the North Shore of O’ahu, they experienced the thrill and fear of big waves at the Sloughs.
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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!
Giant, menacing skeletons have invaded the Target parking lot at Westfield Mission Valley!
This afternoon I noticed a pair of monstrous skeletons have leapt up onto the roof of a large truck in order to terrify motorists passing the shopping mall.
Careful they couldn’t see me, I circled the skeletons and was bewildered to observe a legion of other ghouls, ghosts and ghastly creatures lurking nearby. Some were even peering through windows!
Cool San Diego Sights! 