Several human mummies from Mexico have arrived in San Diego’s Balboa Park!
Okay–they’re replica mummies to be exact. Visitors to the House of Mexico cottage can now view them as well as other artifacts from Guanajuato, a state in central Mexico.
The House of Mexico opened this exhibit a day or two ago. Every three months they celebrate one of Mexico’s many states with a new exhibition.
Not only is Guanajuato famous for its mummies, but the mountainous region is known for mining, its unique culture, and colorful architecture that includes many tunnels. Displays in the cottage include photographs, historical information and crafts from this Mexican tourist destination.
Today I enjoyed a free sample of ice cream unique to Guanajuato! I received a beautiful bilingual magazine titled Roads of Guanajuato, too!
Between the mummies and the ice cream, and all the colorful sights inside the House of Mexico cottage, your family will be sure to enjoy a visit!
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Today is Easter. It’s spring. The sun is out in San Diego. A perfect day for a leisurely walk through Balboa Park!
What did I encounter?
Second day of the Makers Arcade on Balboa Park’s West Mesa.People enjoying yoga near the lawn bowling green.Flowers are in full bloom at the Inez Grant Parker Memorial Rose Garden.Vendors at the San Diego Turtle and Tortoise Society’s Annual Show and Plant Sale.A tortoise in Room 101 of the Casa del Prado.The Spring Exhibition of Art inside the Village Arts Outreach Gallery.Here comes the Balboa Park Miniature Railroad!Many native flowers are showing color along the San Diego Natural History Museum’s Nature Trail.Beautiful butterflies and a ladybug inside the San Diego Sculptors Guild courtyard.A small bird enjoys the green grass growing near the Botanical Building.It’s busy inside the Botanical Building on a sunny Easter day.The new pergola west of the Botanical Building is looking good!Uh, oh! Somebody forgot their bunny ears!Free roses made of corn husks offered by a street performer.Happy Easter in a window at the International Cottages.Looks like Quinceañera photos are being taken at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion.Some cool cars and lowriders have arrived in the park.Spring beauty at the Alcazar Garden in Balboa Park.
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Tony Bingham is presently the artist in residence at the California Center for the Arts Museum in Escondido. Visitors to the museum have the opportunity to meet Tony and experience his work when he is present. I was privileged to meet him a couple days ago. He loves to interact with curious people!
Tony told me about his fascination with A. E. “Fred” Coleman, a former slave who discovered gold in Julian back in 1869, launching a gold rush. The gold mining camp Coleman City quickly sprang up by what today is named Coleman Creek, a tributary of the San Diego River. Among other accomplishments, A. E. Coleman created a toll road into Julian.
Short-lived Coleman City is now a vanished ghost town, but the legacy of A. E. Coleman remains an important part of African American history in the San Diego region. Tony Bingham’s art honors that history.
Tony, with his art, also honors two African American trailblazers: Albert Robinson and Margaret Tull Robinson. In 1887 they started the Robinson Restaurant and Bakery in Julian. Today the establishment is called the Julian Gold Rush Hotel.
Tony Bingham loves to create images using pinhole photography.
He went up to the property through which Coleman Creek runs and took a series of pinhole photographs, often experimenting with different exposures. Here are some of the results…
The words you see above are the names of different mines that were established around Julian during the gold rush.
Tony has also created clay plates that recall the historic Robinson Hotel & Restaurant. The earthy plates among them were formed using the actual grassy soil along Coleman Creek.
Tony has conjectured what food items the restaurant might have had on its menu, and if any vegetables were grown on location.
He has produced plant music that reflects different vegetables, resulting from bioelectrical activity within a living plant. It was very cool listening to a plant “symphony” from his laptop! The potatoes were quite lively!
Tony Bingham is a multi-disciplinary artist and educator from Birmingham, Alabama. His very unique work invites contemplation. It honors the life and legacy of African Americans.
Perhaps his most notable work is the Praise House, an open-air sculpture at a former plantation in Harpersville, Alabama.
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The House of Scotland hosted their annual Tartan Day today. They were celebrating their 77th year in Balboa Park!
A good crowd came out to the International Cottages to enjoy cultural entertainment, Scottish food (meat pies!) and a gathering of various clans.
The House of Scotland Pipe Band and the Helix Highlander Pipes & Drums performed rousing music. Traditional dancers took the stage. The Ashworth Academy of Highland Dance and the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society were represented.
The festival atmosphere was also educational. It seemed every sort of organization that promotes Scottish culture in San Diego appeared on the lawn.
What is meant by Tartan Day, you may ask?
A tartan is the patterned cloth, traditionally made of wool, featuring crisscrossed horizontal and vertical bands in multiple colors, originating from Scotland. Different clans and regions have their own unique tartan. San Diego has a special tartan pattern, too!
One more thing. The epic Scottish Highland Games and Gathering of the Clans is returning after an absence of a couple years. Instead of in Vista, the games will now be held this June 20 and 21, 2026, at the SDSU Mission Valley River Park! Check out the official website here.
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Lots of families came out to A Day at the Park in National City today! The fun waterfront event was held at Pepper Park, thanks to the Port of San Diego.
There was free food, plus live entertainment by the San Diego Symphony, Mariachi Nuevo Aguadulce, and others. For the kids there was face painting and henna tattoos. Many community organizations showed up as well.
The Port of San Diego was demonstrating how they are electrifying their maritime operations to help protect the environment.
I also learned how the National City Historical Society is trying to save Granger Music Hall, an architecturally important building designed by Irving Gill and on the National Register of Historic Places. If you’re curious about their efforts, or would like to help, check out this webpage.
I was eager to see how Pepper Park’s major redevelopment has turned out. I’d seen the new beach during my last visit, but now there’s also the pirate-themed playground and splash pad!
As you can see from my photos, the park has become truly amazing! People who reside in National City and San Diego’s South Bay are very fortunate!
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This is one of the most uplifting and creative exhibitions of art you’re likely to experience. It’s a garden of flowers, trees and animals that was created using Persian carpets! You read that correctly!
This unique exhibition at the museum of the California Center for the Arts, Escondido is titled Maryam Bayat: Unrolling Paradise.
I stepped into the “garden” yesterday during my museum visit. With the sound of birds chirping in the background, I wandered through the plush, colorful foliage and wished there was a “park bench” where I could sit and simply be happy and alive.
In this garden paradise life is good. All cares drop away. From my photos you might understand the wonderful feeling this installation produces. It’s like a comfy living room that has come to life all around you!
The exhibition webpage explains: Unrolling Paradise explores the Persian garden as a living design tradition carried through textiles, memory, and everyday objects. Interdisciplinary artist Maryam Bayat reinterprets centuries-old carpet aesthetics through sculptural works that merge traditional Persian rugs with contemporary form and function.
Raised in Tehran in a family of rug producers and now based in North County San Diego, Bayat draws from inherited craft to create installations that reflect on place, belonging, and cultural continuity. Her woven sculptures—appearing as furniture, abstract trees, and domestic interiors—extend the symbolism of the garden into three-dimensional space, linking ideas of sanctuary to personal and collective memory.
If you tend not to visit museums, this might be the time you consider going. There are several other exhibits, as well, including one that concerns graphics used in computer and video games. Swing on by and have a great time!
Maryam Bayat: Unrolling Paradise can be experienced through Sunday, August 16, 2026, at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido’s museum.
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A cool event is being held today and tomorrow at the California Center for the Arts, Escondido. Hot Glass, Cold Beer: A Fundraiser for the Arts features lots of amazing glass art created by local artists! Beer, too!
By sheer coincidence I ran into the event today while walking to the nearby museum. It’s very similar to the glassblowing event I experienced last year in the same Cal Club Courtyard.
If you want to check out an amazing variety of glass art and colorful glassware, head over tomorrow, April 4, 2026, between noon and 5 pm. The event is free. The glassblowing demonstration is led by renowned glass artist James Stone of Stone & Glass.
Sit down, watch, and enjoy a beer. Here’s the event website listing some of the participating artists and organizations.
James Stone and participating artists will generously donate hand-blown glass cups, which will be given away with a complimentary drink ticket in exchange for a $25 donation.
My next photo shows some of the hand-crafted fused glass created by Parris Toyzan (@parrisorginals). Here’s the website.
Parris was nice enough to describe how he carefully makes these amazing creations with a kiln and colored glass!
By purchasing a beautiful glass on one table you support kids learning glassblowing at schools in Escondido and North San Diego County!
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This coming Fourth of July, 2026, the United States of America will celebrate its semiquincentennial–its 250th Anniversary!
At noon on Independence Day, people in San Diego and across the country will be ringing bells to celebrate two and a half centuries of freedom. Would you like to join them?
There’s a free website that will help you, your family, friends, and interested organizations celebrate the moment. It counts down to noon local time, provides a digital Declaration of Independence, educational material, helpful information about creating your own ceremony, a participation certificate, and will produce eight different selectable bell sounds if you don’t have your own bell handy!
There’s even information about how to produce a ceremonial bell ringing broadcast on local radio stations.
The website is called Freedom Bells. You can learn more at FreedomBells.org or click here! Check out the website FAQs for useful ideas.
Share the news! Get those Freedom Bells ringing from sea to shining sea!
Perhaps, like me, you’ve wondered about the art gallery located next to San Diego’s downtown Fifth Avenue trolley station. Sometimes I’ll peer curiously at the windows when I walk past.
Today the door was wide open!
Inside, what did I find? Singer/songwriter/artist Shelbi Bennett and some of her beautiful artwork, which is being installed in the gallery for an exhibition that opens on April 1, 2026!
Brokers Building Art Gallery is the name of the place. According to its website, the gallery traces its roots to a grassroots artist collective that has existed in San Diego for over 40 years. Originally housed in the historic Brokers Building at Fourth Avenue and Market Street in the Gaslamp Quarter, the gallery functioned as a rare, artist-run cultural space embedded directly within the city’s commercial core.
I learned the Brokers Gallery as it exists today hosts many events, including the monthly Open Mic Night, culture nights, live music, and rotating art exhibitions. Check out their event page by clicking here.
It was a pleasure to briefly meet Shelbi Bennett, who I recognized from her past performance on KUSI television. Fine works of art she has created were going up on the gallery wall!
If you’d like to visit her Instagram page, here it is!
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A big thank you to the several dozen volunteers representing the San Diego Association for Male Nurses! They picked up litter at Ski Beach in Mission Bay today!
I learned that the cleanup is one of many ways the organization improves our city and the people it touches!
The San Diego Association for Male Nurses invites old and new members (and any volunteers) to help with their many efforts, whether it’s coastal cleanups, providing blood pressure awareness to local communities, medically helping children in Mexico, demonstrating CPR in high schools, or handing out Narcan at Chicano Park Day this coming April 25!
Wow, these people are amazing! Super nice too!
According to their website: Our mission is to champion an inclusive professional nursing environment, provide support for current and future male nurses, and advocate to bring awareness to men’s mental and physical health issues.
Awesome! Why not join them?
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Cool San Diego Sights! 