I was in Mission Valley today, so of course I had to ride the trolley over to Snapdragon Stadium. I wanted to check out the free-to-the-public FanFest before San Diego FC’s first ever playoff game!
Can you believe it? San Diego FC’s debut season, and they finished in first place in the MLS Western Conference! Can they make it all the way to the championship?
Fans were just beginning to arrive when I swung by the outdoor event, which was officially called the Ford FanFest. I was pretty early. I’m sure the crowds were much larger after I departed.
What could fans do? Kick soccer balls around. Listen to live music. Have their hair cut. Make fun crafts. Drink beer and visit food trucks. Buy classy San Diego FC merchandise. Admire a row of cool lowriders. Visit a photo booth. Spin prize wheels and check out various sponsors…
Yes, there was plenty to do!
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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 X.
A few weeks ago, on a late summer San Diego day, I enjoyed a sunny walk around part of Mission Bay.
From a point near Riviera Beach at Moorland Drive, I proceeded counterclockwise along the Bayside Walk to San Rafael Place. This northwest part of Mission Bay is called Sail Bay, and you can see why.
Sailboats, bicycles, volleyball, families playing or lounging on the sand, joggers, people enjoying a beautiful, relaxing day… Even yoga on paddleboards!
This is San Diego at its best!
Enjoy photographs that I took as I walked along…
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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.
Today hundreds of geocaching enthusiasts converged on San Diego searching for fun. And they found it!
An event named Signal’s Island drew geocachers from around Southern California and the nation to the grass of NTC Park at Liberty Station.
While rubbing elbows with other members of the broader geocaching community, attendees could enjoy all sorts of challenging family activities. There were nearby hidden geocaches to find, puzzle-like “gadget caches” to figure out (including that one with a toilet in my first photo), interesting displays (including the last remaining item from the world’s first geocache–a can of beans), games like Geo Limbo and Coconut Bowling, photo ops, a mini-pie eating contest, a raffle, a geocaching trackables and pathtag exchange, and more!
Why the name Signal’s Island? Signal the Frog is geocaching’s official mascot, and the event was styled after Gilligan’s Island!
Okay, perhaps you’re a geocache novice, like me. Click here to learn about this fun, healthy and stimulating outdoor hobby! According to the Geocaching website, there are 6,602 geocaches to be discovered around San Diego!
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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.
I learned during the Adams Avenue Street Fair that a new community garden is coming to Normal Heights!
The community garden will occupy the south end of Ward Canyon Neighborhood Park, north of 40th Street and Madison Avenue, where the fenced Large Dog Park used to be.
As this webpage explains, amenities will include 28 garden plots, 9 waist-level garden boxes, compost and trash areas, a tool shed, running water, ADA compliant graded paths, and a native/pollinator plant garden. The existing pergola and bench will be retained.
I see local schools will be involved, allowing kids to learn about growing food, the environment, and leading a healthy life outdoors.
Very cool!
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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.
Then don’t miss the annual Trolley Dances, which are being performed in 2025 near three San Diego Trolley stations in Mission Valley!
The weekend event, produced by San Diego Dance Theater, is a fun outdoor adventure for mobile audiences.
I caught the first of six dances and took some photos. As you can see the Trolley Dances begin near the Fashion Valley Transit Center, in a corner of Town and Country’s resort’s riverfront park.
Mobile audiences go in groups from dance venue to venue, riding the trolley’s Green Line and walking a bit. Yes, it’s a very unique social experience!
The dancing is fluid, athletic, graceful. The performers I watched seemed to defy gravity as their dynamic movements and gestures expressed powerful emotion.
To learn more about Trolley Dances, visit this website, before all tickets sell out!
I snooped around and got these friendly dancers to smile before the noon audience arrived…
Here comes the audience now!
A lone figure approaches across the grass…
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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.
Grant Park and its new River Studio are almost ready to open by the San Diego River!
Finishing touches are being put on the public park and educational center in Mission Valley. The River Studio at Grant Park will start educating local school students in mid-October.
As you can see from today’s photos, sun-filled Grant Park is receiving new greenery, while its amphitheater, shade structure and River Studio building have already been completed.
Over a year ago, before much construction had begun, I posted photos of a tour of the site and wrote about the initial plans. At the beginning of this year I walked outside the project again and posted these photos of work underway.
If you’re curious about the mountain lion and bear in today’s photos–the sculptures will be positioned inside the park to delight visitors. Grass and native plants will fill the outdoor spaces. You’ll notice I spotted some tile art created by kids, too!
(You might find it confusing–the project has also been called “The San Diego River Discovery Center at Grant Park” and “San Diego River Center at Grant Park.”)
Approaching the outdoor amphitheater and River Studio from the nearby parking lot…
Grant Park dedicated July 25, 2025.
The amphitheater is home to The Conrad Prebys Stage. Kids will learn about the San Diego River and its life here.
A beautiful fountain at one end of the amphitheater.
Looking across Grant Park areas that still need to be planted.
Turn left here and what will you encounter?
A bear!
Bears no longer live around here. Human activity is to blame.
Walking beside the McGrath Family Commons. There will be a big grassy area ideal for picnics or play.
A shady place to sit, while gazing out at nature and river vegetation.
Walking along. A friendly worker was busy digging holes and putting in plants.
Wooden benches for relaxation.
Here’s that tile art I mentioned. Each tile depicts a river plant or creature…
Those vertical posts to the right of the River Studio will support a shady canopy.
Now let’s walk back to the River Studio…
I was privileged to be shown the interior of the River Studio, where student groups will learn about the San Diego River environment.
Students from local schools will observe the effects of urban runoff. Using microscopes they’ll examine water samples. They’ll learn how the organisms they observe reflect the health of the nearby river.
Those aquariums will contain live fish.
Also inside the River Studio, there’s a gallery wall with art created by members of the San Diego River Artists Alliance. The group celebrates the San Diego River ecosystem.
The works of art will change from time to time and will be available for purchase. Sales will help fund the San Diego River Park Foundation.
When it finally opens in mid-October, this important addition to Mission Valley is going to be amazing!
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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.
There’s a surprising outdoor art gallery in an alley in San Diego’s Barrio Logan neighborhood. It’s located on the side of the building at 915 S. 26th Street, currently home of Hard Dresser Salon.
Quite unexpectedly, I happened upon this weather-beaten art gallery about a week ago during a long walk.
A very faded graphic to one side of the framed artworks indicates Gold Leaf Project.
According to this website: The premise behind the Gold Leaf Project is that artists currently showing also install and display artwork on the streets of San Diego / Tijuana framed by these Rococo style gold-leaf frames. The point is to literally take art out of the gallery, but still display it as such in the context of the streets.
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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.
One gallery inside Bread and Salt in Logan Heights now contains an art installation titled Lying Fallow. Dried tall grasses rise from soil underfoot in an artificial indoor meadow. One can walk through the small “meadow” and rest on one of the seats, regathering strength.
I love the outdoors and being in nature. That’s where I feel the most healthy, alive. I know many other people feel the same way.
This installation, when I visited it, did remind me that a real meadow, outdoors, with its earthy smell and gentle movement in the wind, calms, restores, inspires, reconnects the mind, body and soul with something larger than ourselves.
But where in the gallery is the sky?
Everything about Lying Fallow is sincere. The artist Helena Westra has assembled something that is an important reminder: Quiet renewal helps us on life’s journey. It helps us to be newly creative.
But what sort of world have we created where we feel compelled to build a realistic natural landscape inside walls?
Are we so hurried and so trapped in artificial environments that “being in nature” is merely an exhibit that we experience for a moment or two?
Real meadows are still out there.
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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.
I got super lucky today. I was walking near the Rady Shell on downtown San Diego’s waterfront when I heard singing voices. I turned toward the San Diego Symphony’s beautiful outdoor venue and discovered Chicago the Musical in Concert was rehearsing for tomorrow’s evening performance!
I sat for a while–one cool thing about rehearsals at The Shell is the public is free to watch politely up close and listen. All I can tell you, anyone going to Chicago the Musical in Concert on Friday is most likely in for a treat!
All That Jazz… Cell Block Tango… Mr. Cellophane… All of the jazzy voices are amazing. I seriously thought I was at a Broadway production.
When I looked at the vocalists’ bios just now, I see that, indeed, they’ve performed in many world-class productions in the most prestigious venues!
Learn all about Chicago the Musical in Concert, and perhaps purchase tickets, by visiting the Rady Shell’s website 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.
I discovered a colorful “I Am San Diego” lifeguard tower in Mission Bay Park today! It overlooks the water a bit north of the San Diego Mission Bay Resort.
The lifeguard tower is decorated with images that represent the vibrancy of life in our city. It’s part of the “I Am San Diego” citywide project that was launched last year. San Diegans are encouraged to share their San Diego stories and experiences on social media using the hashtag #IAmSanDiego. Learn more about it here.
Lifeguard towers are an iconic sight in sunny San Diego. This one definitely attracts beachgoers for a closer look.
I really love how lively this lifeguard tower has become!
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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! 