The day that many in San Diego have anticipated for nearly three months has arrived!
Balboa Park is reopening!
During the coronavirus pandemic, the Central Mesa area of Balboa Park–the beloved center of San Diego’s cultural life–has been closed to the public. But that changes today! While most of the museums aren’t quite ready to open yet, visitors will again be able to amble down El Prado and enjoy the park’s sunshine, gardens and architectural beauty.
And a few places in the park will be open!
The world-famous San Diego Air and Space Museum will be open! So will the Visitor Center, the Prado Restaurant and the Japanese Friendship Garden’s Tea Pavilion! Visitors will notice that modifications have been made to ensure social distancing and generally increase public safety during the COVID-19 pandemic.
You can bet I’ll be heading to Balboa Park first thing after work today. And I’ll be there all weekend. I miss it so much.
Here are a few photographs from my rather inactive blog Beautiful Balboa Park. These photos were taken at sunrise on a summer day almost three years ago.
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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!
Do you ever blink your eyes at an oh-so-serious adult and wonder what they were like as a small child? Before growing up and becoming terribly sophisticated, did they love to draw simple things like hearts, flowers and smiles?
I saw this amazing tile wall in Escondido last weekend as I walked from the California Center for the Arts toward Grape Day Park. A plaque states it’s the 1994 Escondido Students’ Tile Mural. Hundreds of names from local schools appear on this happy, quilt-like mosaic.
The tiles were painted 26 years ago.
I have no doubt that many who painted their tile with small hands long ago still love hearts, flowers and smiles.
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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!
There’s so much art to discover around downtown Vista it makes one’s head spin! I don’t think I’ve observed a greater concentration of public art anywhere else in San Diego County.
In addition to many murals (I’ll share photos of those shortly), there are fun, super creative sculptures almost everywhere one turns: on sidewalks, on street corners, on walls, rising from pedestals into the sky!
There are crazy steampunk sculptures, abstract sculptures, healing sculptures along Veterans Memorial Park, joyful sculptures based on the theme Kites Over Vista.
There are so many public sculptures that I only photographed a fraction of them last weekend as I enjoyed a semi-random walk around downtown Vista.
If you follow Cool San Diego Sights, you probably noticed I already posted photographs of two of these sculptures. Wild Horses here, and Love Locks here. (I’ll soon be sharing photos of one additional very special sculpture.)
To discover much more of this amazing public art, visit the City of Vista Public Art Map by clicking here.
Big Blue Kite, by artist Robert Rochin, 2008.Into the Current, by artist Janis Selby Jones, 2017. (Represents the swirling Great Pacific Garbage Patch.)Joy Figure, by artist Josh Bowman, 2008.Healing, by artist Vicki Leon, 2016.
Freedom, by artists Jaydon Sterling Randall and Rick Randall, 2016.Remembrance, by artist Buddy Smith, 2016.
Plaques set in the Paseo Santa Fe sidewalk contain sculpted avocados.Prima Vista, by artist Michael Angelo Venturello, 2016.A View in Bloom, by artists Thomas and Sylvia King, 2006.Carnival, by artist Rick Randall, 2019.
Alley Cat, by artists Rick and Jaydon Sterling Randall.
Tortuga de Mar, by artist John Meyer, 2018.Peace Arrow, by artist Alex Gall, 2019.
A Flock of Kites, by artist Robert Rochin, 2008.
Alley Art Man.
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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!
In the city of Vista many hearts are locked together.
A double heart-shaped sculpture on Main Street titled Love Locks invites residents to permanently attach a padlock. Each lock symbolizes an unbreakable bond of love.
Love Locks was created by artists Rick Randall and Jaydon Sterling Randall in 2016.
People have added hundreds of unique locks to the two joined hearts.
Each lock has its own story.
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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!
To say the least, the year 2020 has been eventful. The coronavirus pandemic, economic disruption, an election year, widespread protests and even riots. During such times, it’s easy to understand we are all living inside history.
The events of five years ago are also part of human history, even if those days in retrospect seem less troubled, less chaotic.
Well, the world continues to turn and it’s time once again to revisit a few Cool San Diego Sights memories. These are from June 2015.
The big centennial of Balboa Park was underway, of course, and Comic-Con was fast approaching . . . plus there were many other happy celebrations of life in San Diego.
To revisit memories from five years ago, click the following links:
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.
Because I live nearby on Cortez Hill, I frequently see the colorful mural in the above photograph. It was painted last year at one end of the rooftop of the old, now vacant San Diego Superior Court Family Court Building. (Years ago the Family Court moved to another downtown location.)
For a while last year, during a larger than average influx of refugees, the unused building was turned into a temporary shelter for asylum-seeking families. At the time I often saw kids playing outdoors on the roof, to one side of the parking area.
One day the mural appeared. Some cheerful color to brighten the lives of children, who were experiencing a very stressful moment in their lives through no fault of their own.
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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’re bored sitting at home while the pandemic rages, and you like to read, you might enjoy checking out dozens of thought-provoking short stories here.
As always, thank you for coming along on my small adventures.
Cool San Diego Sights! 