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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The 26th Annual Flag Day Parade was held late this morning through downtown La Mesa. Hundreds of residents came out for the patriotic Flag Day spectacle.
Flags lined La Mesa Boulevard. Families gathered along the sidewalks in anticipation. At ten o’clock, the big parade, a beloved La Mesa tradition, began!
There were marching bands, equestrian groups, politicians, scouts, local schools, churches, clubs and organizations, waving queens, costumed cosplayers, cool cars . . . even tractors! It appeared to me the entire community had come together.
The Flag Day Parade this year celebrated service organizations who work to improve lives in the city. Grand Marshalls were the La Mesa Kiwanis Club, the La Mesa Lions Club, La Mesa Optimist International, and the La Mesa Rotary Club.
Most of my photographs were taken a bit away from the crowd, which mostly gathered in the center of La Mesa’s historic downtown. At the end of the parade, I followed the big flag held by volunteers, and I took my final photo with hundreds of flag-waving spectators all around.
Ready? The big parade is starting…
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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 museum jam-packed with wonders that everyone in San Diego should visit. I’m speaking of the Heritage of the Americas Museum in Rancho San Diego.
The Heritage of the Americas Museum is located near the West entrance of Cuyamaca College, immediately adjacent to the Water Conservation Garden. The museum building appears modest at first glance, but when you step through the front door your eyes might pop out of your head!
How do I begin to describe this amazing place?
The museum has four wings. They are dedicated to Archaeology, Anthropology, Natural History and Fine Art. If you wanted to examine every artifact, specimen and work of art, you could easily spend an hour exploring the museum.
Display cases contain objects from the Americas that fall into dozens of categories, whether it might be Peruvian textiles, or Haida and Tlingit artifacts, or paleo points dated 12000 B.C. to 6000 B.C., or millions-year-old fossils, or beautiful sea shells and coral…
When I visited, school children on a field trip were excitedly peering into the displays, seeing new worlds beyond their own life experience.
I’ll share a few photos so you get an idea of the fascinating worlds you’ll encounter, too.
Cool thing: the Heritage of the Americas Museum is free to the public every second Friday of the month!
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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 exhibit about the history of fishing in San Diego opens today at the Maritime Museum of San Diego.
Harvesting the Ocean expands upon pre-existing displays in the museum. The new exhibit follows the rise and fall of our city’s commercial fishing industry, and celebrates contributions by native people, immigrants and resilient fishing families to that rich history.
In addition to informative signs containing historical photographs, the exhibit includes artifacts used by fishermen who’ve harvested the ocean over the years.
I enjoyed an early look at the exhibit. If you’re interested in this very important aspect of San Diego history, you need to experience it, too.
The opening of this exhibit corresponds with the launch of a new seafood cookbook created by over a hundred contributors from the San Diego community. San Diego Seafood: Then & Now is available at the Maritime Museum’s gift shop. It contains over 75 recipes and includes essays, stories and photographs that bring our city’s extensive and diverse fishing history to life.
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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.
Brand new San Diego trolley wraps for Comic-Con 2025 are appearing on almost a daily basis!
Today another design promoting Nintendo’s recently released Switch 2 and its Mario Kart World game can be seen running through the city!
Yesterday a different Mario trolley wrap debuted–see those photographs here. A wrap promoting Donkey Kong Bananza on Switch 2 appeared a few days back–see that here!
And there are already many trolley cars wrapped with a design that promotes the upcoming movie Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle!
And to think Comic-Con is still over a month away.
The excitement builds…
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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.
IGNITE CREATIVITY proclaims this fun, very colorful mural in Hillcrest. It was painted last year on the side of ArtReach San Diego‘s building on University Avenue.
Information in a nearby window indicates the mural’s lead artists were Esteban Sanchez, Isabel Halpern and Ian Stiles-Mikl, and that over 200 community members helped to paint it.
ArtReach is an inclusive and welcoming place where art is transformative. Youth who participate in ArtReach programs can turn their dreams to reality.
As the organization’s website explains: Through artmaking, young people find a powerful outlet to express themselves, process emotions, and build self-esteem—all while forming bonds with their peers in a nurturing yet inspiring environment.
I took these photos about a week ago during a walk through Hillcrest.
Over the years I’ve photographed many ArtReach public art projects all around San Diego. To see those very creative murals, click here or here or here or here or here or here or 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.
A plaque honoring San Diego’s underwater pioneers is embedded in a boulder a short distance west of La Jolla Cove. It was placed above Boomer Beach next to Ellen Browning Scripps Park last year.
People walking beside the ocean on the scenic boardwalk might see the bronze plaque near a bench.
The plaque reads:
Since 1933, offshore from this beach access, the seafloor bears memorial markers to name and honor San Diego’s most heralded underwater pioneers. The San Diego Bottom Scratchers Dive Club.
The Bottom Scratchers dedicated every dive to preventing the waste of sea life and to helping others appreciate the wonders of the sea. All who enter here fall under oath to do the same.
Plaque donated by San Diego Freedivers.
Here’s a great article about the Bottom Scratchers Dive Club, which began almost a century ago. It explains: The name “Scratchers” came from the members’ habit of scouring the ocean bottom for food… The Bottom Scratchers either invented or were the first to use the basic freediving spearfishing gear still employed today… Soon club members became local legends… Everything the explorers experienced was new…
There are some great old photographs in the article, 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.
Mario will be riding the San Diego Trolley during Comic-Con 2025!
The latest San Diego Trolley wrap for Comic-Con promotes the Nintendo Switch 2 and ever popular Mario games, including Mario Kart World, which launched on Switch 2 last week.
For 2025, this is the third Comic-Con trolley wrap design I’ve noticed so far. Considering San Diego’s international pop culture event is still a month and a half away, I reckon there will be many more to come!
Time to Power Up Your Play!
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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 Island of Misfit Toys has magically appeared at Silver Strand State Beach!
The sandy “island,” where beach toys await boys and girls, is open to all comers near the State Beach’s lifeguard building!
The delightful toy chest you see in my photos was built about a month ago by Silver Strand State Beach maintenance personnel. It was painted beautifully with local and related natural scenes by talented artist Victoria.
The open chest is is full of lost toys that have been found on the beach, like shovels and pails used to build sandcastles. Families visiting the beach can borrow the toys which might otherwise have been discarded.
A wonderful idea!
By the way, everyone I spoke with at Silver Strand State Beach today was super friendly! You all are awesome!
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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.
San Diego history can be viewed during a walk across the First Avenue Bridge in Bankers Hill.
Two identical bronze dedication plaques remain at either end of the arched steel bridge, which was built over Maple Canyon in 1931. The impressive structure was originally called the Peoples Bridge.
Today, looking down into Maple Canyon, you can also observe history being made. The Maple Canyon Restoration project has been underway for a couple years, replacing storm drains in the canyon, and expanding the channel to establish streambed and riparian habitats along the canyon floor.
Ten years ago I walked down Maple Canyon Trail and under the First Avenue Bridge. You can see photographs that I took here.
First Avenue Bridge…Length 463.24 feet…Height 104 feet…Erected by property owners under Improvement Act of 1911…R.E. Hazard Contracting Co…Tom Johnson Allen, Civil Engineer…R. Robinson Rowe, Structural Engineer…John C. Shaw, Consulting Engineer…R.M. Gregory, Superintendent of Streets
STANDARD IRON WORKS SAN DIEGO is indicated in many places along the 1931 steel bridge that spans Maple Canyon in Bankers Hill.
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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! 