This bench decorated with tile mosaics adds beauty to the edge of a parking lot south of the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach.
I saw the artwork yesterday during a leisurely walk down South Cedros Avenue. It was one of many new discoveries that I made in the very colorful Cedros Avenue Design District!
I believe I see a starfish, garibaldi, seahorse and crab. The curving bench appears to show an underwater ocean scene. What do you see?
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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.
Do you have a curious mind? Five years ago, during the month of June, Cool San Diego Sights featured a whole universe of photographs. Perhaps you might enjoy viewing colorful moments from the past!
From Escondido to La Jolla, from North Park to City Heights, from Barrio Logan to National City to Chula Vista, my camera recorded many places and events. I took so many photos, in fact, that I’ve had a hard time choosing which posts to share!
The upcoming links will take you back to June 2019. It was a fine time to take a walk. Summer events were underway. San Diego Comic-Con was on the way. Human creativity, activity and possibilities could be discovered everywhere!
To see many photographs, click the following links!
A couple of fun, free, family-friendly events are coming up this summer in Old Town San Diego State Historic Park!
On Thursday, June 13, 2024, from 10 am to 4 pm, everyone can enjoy the Pastimes of Old Town San Diego. There will be wheelbarrow races, tug of war, sack races and more 19th century games on the grassy plaza at the center of the park. If you’ve ever been to Old Town State Park and seen these games, you know how fun they are! This particular event is part of California State Parks Week.
Then there’s the Fourth of July! The annual Independence Day event starts at 11 am with a flag raising ceremony in the plaza, and patriotic fun will continue until 3 pm. Visitors can enjoy live music, crafts, and more historical games.
If you love history, Americana or nostalgia, you’ll almost certainly love these events. You might think you’ve stepped back in time to the days of early San Diego.
Here are a few photographs that I took in past years…
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
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 San Diego Cactus and Succulent Society’s big annual Summer Show and Sale takes place this weekend!
Vendors and members of the society were setting up at the Casa del Prado in Balboa Park this afternoon. In addition to cacti and succulents, visitors this Saturday and Sunday can check out gardening information, art, crafts, and perhaps purchase something beautiful for their home!
I happened to be walking through the Casa del Prado’s outdoor courtyard when I saw the long tables full of potted plants that will be for sale. I then peeked into Room 101 where the show will take place.
To see the San Diego Cactus and Succulent Society’s web page concerning their 2024 Summer Show and Sale, click here!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
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.
Near the center of the hangar deck of the USS Midway Museum, there’s a scale model of Freedom Park at Navy Pier. When completed, this large, new public park will occupy the historic pier that the USS Midway aircraft carrier has called home now for 20 years.
One can walk around the model and visualize in three dimensions how Freedom Park will appear when it has its Grand Opening, which is scheduled for Spring 2028. The park will include a formal parade ground, plenty of grass for recreation, gardens, benches, play structures, trees and winding walkways, and a monumental flag at the pier’s end which will be visible from downtown and across San Diego Bay.
This informative presentation provides an excellent overview of the plans for Freedom Park, including a detailed map and timeline for completion.
The parade ground will feature a central statue of John William Finn, San Diego area resident and last surviving Medal of Honor recipient from the attack on Pearl Harbor. The park will also feature a Family and Sacrifice Monument, honoring the sacrifices thousands of military families have made, telling their stories. Navy Pier was once where many families waved goodbye to departing sailors.
A Footsteps of Freedom interpretive path will follow the length of Navy Pier and circle around the USS Midway, connecting with the present-day Greatest Generation Walk, where many military monuments exist today. (Including this Navy plaque, whose exact origin was a mystery, until some of this blog’s readers provided amazing information!)
Other features will enhance the new Freedom Park, such as a Digital Journey that people can follow with their smartphones.
Today, after viewing the model and taking a few photos, I asked a docent at the Midway Museum: where will visitors park their cars? (Most of the parking lot now atop the pier will be vanishing.) He informed me there is underground parking at the new RaDD complex across Harbor Drive. A small parking lot will remain near the entrance of the museum.
Of course, a project of this magnitude requires a lot of funding. There’s more money to be raised. If you’d like to buy a Freedom Park Legacy Brick and help with this effort, click here.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
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.
A very young boy came with his family and sat in the plastic chair beside my own this morning. The family had arrived for the Memorial Day ceremony, held on the flight deck of the USS Midway.
The small child was very fidgety. As speakers spoke solemnly of the sacrifice of others, and of very serious things like honor, duty, courage and dedication, the little boy wiggled about at the edge of my vision.
Lt. Col. Lynda Hilliard, an Army nurse, gave the keynote speech. As she talked about two wars and the sacrifice of other nurses who desired only to heal, the little boy thrust his arm in front of my face.
I was immediately irritated. Oh, come on, I thought to myself.
The boy was pointing toward something off to the right.
Then I heard the bird chirping. (Did you hear it, too?) I had been concentrating on the powerful words of the speech.
A small bird, perched atop a nearby helicopter, was just visible to the eye. The young boy had heard and seen it, and was taking joy in pointing it out to the world.
The boy was happy, living without a care in a world where he was free.
And it occurred to me: that Security, Freedom and its Happiness, in this old world filled with everlasting trouble, is a gift from those who have unselfishly sacrificed.
I gazed in wonder at that small chirping bird for a few moments, too.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
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 hope somebody recorded them–those words spoken today by First Sergeant, US Army, Brian Bennett. They were eloquent. They were true.
After eating a hot dog in the San Diego sunshine, I sat listening to Brian’s speech during the Memorial Day event at Balboa Park’s International Cottages. He was the first of five distinguished speakers. They had served in the United States Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force or Coast Guard. All of the speakers were excellent.
Brian is a teacher at Mount Miguel High School. He confessed that he began to prepare his speech the way many of his students do their homework–by using AI. We in the audience laughed.
Brian, however, found that AI’s predictable answer about the meaning of Memorial Day wasn’t quite right. True–the holiday is about duty, dedication, courage and ultimate sacrifice—but the computed answer wasn’t complete.
A true understanding of Memorial Day, explained Brian, involves long years of service and often difficult experience. It’s only then that one can fully understand the great and meaningful sacrifice made by those who’ve fallen in service to their country. Ideals easily spoken of become real.
Ultimately, he explained, Memorial Day is about love.
Love for those in your life who are precious. Love for a country whose founding documents grant us a life of freedom. And love for those who’ve come before, sacrificing so that we may live this life.
Yes, I thought, a life where people from all walks can freely gather together and speak or listen to powerful words without fear.
I hope my few, poor words did Brian’s great speech justice.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
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 construction fences are down! The San Diego Natural History Museum’s new outdoor native garden has opened, and there’s a trail that follows the newly planted greenery around the museum!
Native plants, flowers and trees now abound, but since the garden is just getting started, most plants are small and the landscape appears a bit bare. Once everything is grown, the garden should be much more beautiful!
Right now there’s plastic fencing along the pathway, protecting the new plantings from careless visitors and dogs. It appears to be temporary.
Informative signs can be read along the looping trail, and smaller signs indicate the native species planted nearby. There’s a boulder-filled sitting area and short side trail, too, on the museum’s north side–you know, the side with the enormous Moreton Bay Fig.
The “Nat’s Nature Trail” features various themed segments. As you walk around the Natural History Museum building, you encounter Pollinator Paradise, Spiny Sidewalk, Boulder Garden, Discovery Path, Wildlife Walkway, First People’s Garden, and Container Corner.
What a great addition to an already amazing Balboa Park!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
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.
If you don’t venture down into Balboa Park’s mostly hidden Zoro Garden, you won’t experience its colorful spring flowers that are now in bloom.
I headed to Balboa Park for a special Memorial Day program today, but I had a couple of hours to wander around. I’m so glad I caught a small glimpse of this color as I walked along El Prado. I couldn’t resist turning down a path that descends into the park’s sunken stone grotto garden.
Look at all the flowers! And another hidden surprise!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
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 residents of Sherman Heights are very fortunate. They have a community center that radiates positive energy with loads of incredible art!
The Sherman Heights Community Center welcomes visitors with its many colorful outdoor murals and mosaics. Low walls, planters, columns . . . even an electrical box has been decorated! Yesterday, when I walked up Island Avenue and saw all the artwork, my camera became very busy!
The center’s website explains: The community we serve is predominantly Mexican- American with many families facing economic hardship. This community has preserved itself by using art as an avenue towards empowerment & collaboration. For many years the community has supported and participated in creating, preserving, and cultivating a culture of rich history through the arts here at our center.
Sherman Heights, just east of downtown San Diego, is famous for its Día de los Muertos celebrations. That’s reflected in some of the artwork.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
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! 