To celebrate California State Parks Week, outdoor games that were popular in the 1800s were being enjoyed in the park’s historic plaza!
Tug of War, Hoop and Stick, Graces, Sack, Egg and Wheelbarrow Races–park visitors were invited to take part in these fun old-fashioned pastimes!
I hung around for a few minutes and watched the action! Participants who won each game or took second place were awarded ribbons!
Who will win this game of Tug of War?The game of Graces involves launching and catching a small wooden hoop with two wands.Hoop and Stick is a fun way to pass the time. In 19th century San Diego, there were no television shows or video games.During an Egg Race, one must balance an egg on a spoon, while hurrying along toward the finish line!
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By strolling around Collier Park, you can also discover a bit of history.
As the city of La Mesa’s first park, Collier Park has long served as a community gathering space.
Kumeyaay – The Kumeyaay Tribe of Indigenous peoples have a rich history in the area, harnessing nature’s local resources. The natural spring in the park once served as a seasonal stopping place for the local Kumeyaay.
David C. Collier – Colonel David Charles (D.C.) Collier, a pioneer community developer in La Mesa and throughout San Diego County, was responsible for donating the land to the community for what would become the City’s first public park after incorporation in 1912.
In the next photograph, you can spot La Mesa’s historical Spring House. Curious? I blogged about it 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.
Perhaps you’d like to join Balboa Park’s volunteer Rose Garden Corps. You’ll help beautify the world-class Inez Grant Parker Memorial Rose Garden!
I saw a small army of volunteers today in the rose garden, pruning, weeding, raking and fertilizing, while enjoying the San Diego sunshine. Rose Garden Corps members work Tuesdays or Thursday in the morning, and there is a monthly meeting.
If you think you’d like to join the Rose Garden Corps, check out this webpage to learn all about it!
Incidentally, the rose garden is in peak bloom right now. It’s spectacular!
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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.
Park Opera was enjoyed by visitors to San Diego’s beautiful Balboa Park this evening. People on foot, following a map and at times using their smartphones, partook of unique outdoor performances that stimulated the senses in often unusual ways.
Park Opera was composed by Wojtek Blecharz, and produced in San Diego by arts organization PROJECT [BLANK]. As the event website explains: PARK OPERA was commissioned in 2016 by Theater Powszechny in Warsaw, Poland. In 2020, it was reimagined in a forest near Basel, Switzerland as part of the Rümlingen Festival, and was performed again in Austria in 2024 on a tiny island in the middle of a turquoise alpine lake at Carinthischer Sommer Festival.
How does one describe each quiet “Act” encountered while walking through Balboa Park? Subdued. Subtle. Somehow elemental. Stimulating–if you wish it.
Those who follow the map from one Act to the next are considered the protagonists of a personal story. It’s a story that involves concentrated listening and being in the moment. The park’s ambient noise combines with soft instruments and voices, and we become more sensitive and aware of the amazing world that is all around us.
I photographed some of the eleven Acts.
ACT 2: Overture for 4 instruments
ACT 4: Ballet
This was a ballet of sound. Dancing performers whirled small speakers around those passing by. The changing tones seemed natural, perhaps like strange sounds in a wilderness, or dream . . . and weirdly cosmic. One must hear to understand.
ACT 6: Duet
ACT 7: Binoculars for Sound
Different hollow objects act like seashells when held to the ear…
ACT 8: Recitativo
ACT 11: The Gong
Most visitors struck the gong very softly to hear its subtle, resonating sound.
One person struck it with all of their might. Now that was stimulating!
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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.
Few people enjoy the scenic view in the above photograph. That’s because the remote Coast View parking lot is seldom visited at Cabrillo National Monument.
The small parking lot can be found at the end of Cabrillo Road, just before the gate to the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant. Most park visitors who drive down Cabrillo Road stop at Tidepools Parking and go no farther.
I recently posted a blog about my amazing hike up the Coastal Trail. I began from a spot near Tidepools Parking and walked north to Sea Cove Parking, where the trail ends. I didn’t mention that from the latter parking lot, I continued north a short distance along the side of Cabrillo Road, in order to reach Coast View Parking. That’s where these photographs were taken.
An overlook at the Coast View parking lot not only offers scenic views of the Pacific Ocean and sandstone bluffs, but there are information signs well worth reading.
Here I am carefully walking north along the side of Cabrillo Road…
I’ve arrived at Coast View Parking. There are benches where people can relax and gaze out toward the ocean.
A sign contains a poem…
“…The great rhythms of nature…have here their spacious and primeval liberty…”
Above the parking lot, up atop the Point Loma peninsula, one can see Battery Ashburn…
Embedded in the ridge in front of you was one of San Diego’s most important defenses during World War II. Well-hidden from approaching ships, Battery Ashburn housed two 16-inch guns…
Workers finished building the battery in March of 1944… Vibrations from the blast were so intense that they were rumored to have cracked windows in Hotel del Coronado across the harbor…
Turning east, I lifted my camera and took this photo of historic Battery Ashburn:
I then noticed a truck leaving the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant, which handles sewage and gray water created by more then 2.2 million people who live nearby!
A beautiful day at Cabrillo National Monument, and a parking lot that few people visit…
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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 new Sweetwater Park in Chula Vista opened early this month. Many people have already explored its nature trails. I did so, too, a few days ago.
One trail runs the length of the park on its west side, nearest San Diego Bay. It offers benches and blinds from which one can view bird activity in a wide expanse of native coastal vegetation.
I took photographs as I veered off the bikeway at the south end of Sweetwater Park and started up this main trail. It’s an easy level walk. This is what you might see should you walk as far as the gate restricting access to Gunpowder Point Drive.
(If you choose, you can continue up the trail, which curves around the Sun Outdoors RV resort. Then, using your wits, taking a dirt road and path, you’ll end up at E Street at Bay Boulevard, near Interstate 5.)
Continuing north. I’ll take the short branching path on the left that passes a bench, then return to the main trail…
Gazing to the south, one can see Marine Group Boat Works and their immense boat-lifting Travelift. It was a bit foggy this day…
I believe these are bush sunflower…
Another side trail and bench…
A short trail leads west to this rusty blind with a bench…
Looking north, you can see the Living Coast Discovery Center and the adjacent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services building. Way in the distance I see Point Loma, the Coronado Bridge and downtown San Diego…
Heading back up the main trail…
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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.
As I walked through the garden today, I noticed someone working on this incredible wall. Rosalie, a friendly garden volunteer and artist, took a moment to show me what she was up to. She explained that her Tool Wall is nearing completion!
Some grouting, painting and a bit of other work, and the artistic wall will be finally completed. She been working on it for months.
The wall stands by a path in an area of the educational Water Conservation Garden that is devoted to the use of garden tools. Appropriately, decorated garden tools project from the top of the wall!
Rosalie explained the words on the wall: A garden is a grand teacher. It’s a quote by a very famous British horticulturist and garden designer, Gertrude Jekyll. Yes, tending a garden teaches patience, nurturing, a love for nature and the outdoors…
I’ll soon be blogging more about the amazing Water Conservation Garden, a hidden gem in San Diego’s East County, so stay tuned!
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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 first controlled winged flight in human history took place in San Diego in 1883. That’s when John J. Montgomery launched his glider from the top of a breezy hill in Otay Mesa West. So it stands to reason that the famous hill today would be an ideal spot to fly your kite!
The grassy hill, where a monument to Montgomery’s legendary flight now stands, experiences plenty of sunshine and a nearly constant breeze. The hilltop’s expansive Montgomery-Waller Community Park is a place where families gather for picnics, sports and recreation . . . and to enjoy their own special flight!
I sat on a park bench today for a few minutes and watched a kite dancing in the cloudless, blue San Diego sky…
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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 rooftop of the San Diego Natural History Museum in Balboa Park is seldom open to the public. I was lucky that the rooftop happened to be open today, the first Tuesday of the month, when The NAT is free to San Diego residents and active military and their dependents. But I was told that’s not always the case.
The rooftop is indeed reliably open to the public the third Friday of every month, when the museum presents Nat at Night and remains open until 10 pm.
The Natural History Museum’s rooftop not only offers spectacular views, but there’s food and drink and plenty of tables. Today The Craft Taco had their menu available. Later this year, the food will be provided by San Diego’s Restaurant of the Year in 2024 (according to San Diego Magazine): Wolf in the Woods.
Rooftop views are to the east and south. To the east, one can see Balboa Park’s beautiful Desert and Rose Gardens, Morley Field and Florida Canyon, and in the far distance, the Cuyamaca Mountains. To the south is the Bea Evenson Fountain, the Fleet Science Center, and glimpses of downtown San Diego skyscrapers through treetops. In the distance one can recognize a slice of South Bay, and, on a clear day, one can see all the way to Mexico.
Okay! Time for today’s photographs!
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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.
Cool San Diego Sights! 