On Sunday, January 5, 2025, the public has the rare opportunity to meet professional children’s book writers and illustrators. The free event takes place in the Community Room of the La Jolla-Riford Library from 3 to 5 pm.
If you can’t make this very special event, swing by La Jolla’s library during its open hours to see artwork by these creators. They’re all members of the San Diego Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Dozens of their pieces are now displayed on the walls of the Community Room.
You can view this wonderful library exhibit, which is titled Stories Imagined, through February 24, 2025. All of the pieces can be purchased, too!
I checked out the imaginative art yesterday and took photos of several pieces I liked…
Orb Weaver’s Tightrope Dance, by Cheryl Boeller.Beaver Hydrologist, by Michelle McCunney.Distracted, by Livna Genchel.Parental Unit (Betty Builds It), by Julie Hampton.
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If you are fascinated by local history, love riding the Coronado ferry, or have memories of the old ferries that crossed San Diego Bay many, many years ago, you’ll want to visit the latest exhibit at the Coronado Historical Association‘s museum.
The exhibit recalls the old-time ferries, which were required to reach the island long before the San Diego-Coronado Bridge opened in 1969. It describes every ship of the Coronado Ferry Company and the Star & Crescent Boat Company, that transported people and vehicles across the bay. Of course, the ferries today serve mostly tourists exploring on foot and recreational bicyclists–and people like me who love a short ride from downtown San Diego across our beautiful bay!
Photographs, historical documents, ferry tickets, memorabilia, related art and stories fill the small but always amazing Coronado Historical Association museum. It’s very cool that visitors are encouraged to write down their personal memories, too!
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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 X.
An epic multi-month event has begun in San Diego and throughout our region. Geocachers are participating in Cache Across Southern California 2025!
Geocaches are now hidden and waiting for discovery in ten Southern California counties. The event is described in this way:
Cache Across Southern California (CASC) invites you on a thrilling journey through roughly 40 Geocaches hidden across all 10 Southern California counties. With this year’s Hollywood-inspired theme, you’ll explore the magic of filmmaking while embarking on a Geocaching adventure like no other. For those who are unfamiliar, Geocaching is a worldwide GPS-based scavenger hunt in which one uses a free app on their phone to find hidden containers with a log sheet inside. To join the fun, locate a CASC Geocache and print the official passport. Each cache contains a unique stamp, which you’ll use to mark the small movie tickets on your passport. This makes prize redemption at the SoCal Spring Fling Mega Event on May 3, 2025, a seamless experience. As you progress, share your journey with fellow participants in the official CASC Facebook group. The group will also feature updates and announcements leading up to the Spring Fling.
If participating in this epic event sounds overwhelming, fear not. While the top prize requires locating 15 caches across 10 counties, you can also win prizes for finding 6 caches across 3 counties.
Want to join the fun or learn more about the outdoor hobby of geocaching? The San Diego Geocachers Facebook Group is where you can interact with over a thousand other local geocaching enthusiasts.
Happy hunting!
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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 X.
The provocative title of the current exhibition at La Jolla’s Athenaeum Music & Arts Library is The Splinter in the Eye. Does artist Carlos Castro Arias want the viewer to remove the log in their own eye before offering criticism?
The mixed media, sensory installation challenges a naïve view of the world. To me, it appears to highlight historical disruptions and destruction resulting from developments brought on by civilization. It also suggests the ultimate failure of human ambition–the materialism and the conceits.
One thing is certain. These works by the artist can make one feel uneasy.
Severed limbs, the severed head of missionary priest Junipero Serra in a birdbath, visions of dripping blood and a baptismal pool of blood, bloodlike crosses projected onto the floor as if through the stained glass of a cathedral, dead taxidermy birds from a museum, fractured relics, plants growing through skeletons and blue jeans…all framed by rigid two-by-fours, as if the unstoppable construction of new things divides and overwhelms all.
Pieces in the exhibition have bizarre titles like Eating the Guts of Those Who Loved Me, Botox Against the Machine, Caffeine Overdose, and (don’t shoot the messenger, please!) Borderline Retarded. Yes, the effect of it all is rather depressing. Apart from representations of the ancient and the natural world, there seems to be little or nothing envisioned that is hopeful.
I know, many artists like to shock people with criticisms of modernity–in particular Western Civilization and its Christian heritage–but is the world of today really that bleak?
My question is: has the artist removed the log from his own eye?
Now I’m in trouble, I suppose.
Perhaps my attempt at interpretation is terribly uninformed. Perhaps I’m overreacting.
If you’d like to explore this bold artwork and come to your own conclusions, head on down to the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla before the exhibition ends on January 11, 2025.
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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 X.
The famous Spreckels Organ in Balboa Park celebrated its “birthday” today with a special anniversary concert. The organ debuted in 1915 on New Year’s Day for the Panama-California Exposition. Officially the world’s largest outdoor musical instrument, the Spreckels Organ has provided free weekly concerts in San Diego for–can you believe it–the last 110 years!
San Diego Civic Organist extraordinaire Raúl Prieto Ramírez is in Spain visiting his family for the holidays, so concert-goers today enjoyed music performed by well-known organist Russ Peck–another San Diego favorite! It’s the New Year, so he chose several traditional pieces by Johann Strauss Jr., including Wine, Women, and Song and, of course, The Blue Danube.
During the special concert, the public was invited to enter the organ building and see (and really hear!) the King of Instruments with its over 5000 pipes in action. Experiencing the organ this way is typically a once-every-year opportunity.
I didn’t venture inside the organ building this time–I’ve posted photographs in the past. You can see the photos I shared 10 years ago by clicking here.
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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 X.
New Year’s Day in 2025 was the perfect day for a long, sunny walk in San Diego. So that’s what I did!
I took these photographs as I strolled from beautiful San Diego Bay to Balboa Park.
Happy New Year to all!
A couple sits at the end of Broadway Pier gazing across San Diego Bay toward many sailboats. It’s the San Diego Yacht Club’s annual New Year’s Day Race.Many people were enjoying a sunny New Year’s Day by walking along San Diego’s Embarcadero.The Children’s Park playground was super busy.Family plays foosball at Children’s Park.A quiet day to fish out on San Diego Bay.A perfect day for friends to throw a baseball on the grass.The big 2-day New Year’s FNGRS CRSSD concert takes place at Petco Park.People enjoy walking through Balboa Park’s rose garden.Yes, a very fine day for a walk.Musician plays in the Plaza de Panama near Balboa Park’s House of Hospitality.Many eyes gaze down into the lush Lower Garden of the Japanese Friendship Garden.A good crowd listens to the 110th Anniversary Concert of the Spreckels Organ in Balboa Park.You never know what you’ll see in Balboa Park!Nearly all of the International Cottages in Balboa Park were closed for New Year’s Day. At the House of Scotland cottage, the door was wide open, welcoming one and all!Another year gone by. The effort to reopen the historic Starlight Bowl continues.The United States flag above the San Diego Automotive Museum is at half-staff on New Year’s Day. President Jimmy Carter passed away at age 100 on December 29, 2024.
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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 X.
Dozens of amazing Christmas ornaments that were created through the years for the Hotel del Coronado are now on display in the hotel’s Ice House Museum!
Beginning in 1993, the Hotel del Coronado has offered an Annual Collector’s Ornament with a holiday theme. Most of the ornaments contain a sparkling image of Coronado’s historic Victorian beach resort.
Visitors to the hotel’s Ice House Museum can now peer into several display cases and see the jewel-like beauty of these ornaments!
I was pleasantly surprised to discover the seasonal exhibit yesterday. I took a few photographs.
(The following photo is of a 2007 Commemorative Set containing interpretations of past ornaments…)
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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 X.
Those who walk into the children’s section of the Coronado Public Library are in for a treat during the holiday season! A gigantic glass case inside the Children’s Library entrance contains the Holiday Train!
The big O-Scale train layout contains a snowy winter scene filled with characters that kids love, including Mickey Mouse, Snoopy, Sylvester the Cat, Winnie the Pooh and Paddington Bear. And there’s a Santa Claus reading to a gathered audience of small teddy bears, too!
Many of the figures rotate or move about as the Holiday Train rolls merrily around the oval track.
A librarian told me this Holiday Train is a Coronado Public Library tradition that goes back to the 1990s.
If your family visits Coronado during the holidays, swing by the library! They have a beautiful Christmas tree near the front desk, too!
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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 X.
Looking for some holiday season fun in downtown San Diego?
Look what I discovered today during my walk along San Diego’s sunny Embarcadero. The first ever Downtown Skate roller skating rink at the Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina!
The 6000 square foot rink has a beautiful view of the Marriott Marina and sailboats passing on San Diego Bay, and features festive decorations that light up in the evening after dark. There are also tasty treats to enjoy like hot chocolate (and that yummy chocolate chip cookie that I devoured)!
Some of the folks working at Downtown Skate smiled for my camera.
Would you love to “roller dance” under bright, sparkling lights?
Looks like loads of fun!
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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 X.
Did you know that the holiday season television animated classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas received a censored edit due to “inappropriate” language? And that the Grinch’s green color was likely inspired by a rental car?
Those are just two of many fun facts you’ll learn about the Grinch should you visit The Chuck Jones Gallery, which recently relocated to San Diego’s Seaport Village!
The surprising “Did You Know?” display stands next to works of collectible Grinch art created by Theodor Seuss Geisel, also known as beloved children’s author and cartoonist Dr. Seuss.
I happened by the gallery today and enjoyed viewing a wide variety of classic pop culture art, and learning some surprising Grinch history!
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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 X.
Cool San Diego Sights! 