The Rancho Bernardo Veterans Memorial is located in Webb Park. During a recent walk around small Webb Lake, I paused at the memorial to read plaques honoring military veterans who’ve sacrificed to defend our country and freedoms.
You can learn more about the Rancho Bernardo Veterans Memorial by visiting the Mission page of its website. You’ll read how the Veterans Memorial was designed and installed at a central location in Rancho Bernardo – Webb Park – and dedicated on 4 July 1994.
Engraved plaques along the sidewalk define the Patriots Walk. This feature, honoring veterans, was dedicated in 2022.
If you know of someone who ought to be included in the Patriots Walk, and you’d like to make a donation that goes toward maintaining the memorial, you can find a printable nomination form here.
These photos were taken on an overcast day.
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Have you driven up Interstate 15 through Rancho Bernardo and glimpsed a small lake below the freeway to the east, tucked among several buildings? That’s Webb Lake.
The beautiful little lake is located in Webb Park. The private park, owned and managed by the Bernardo Town Center Property Owners Association, welcomes the public from sunrise to sunset.
The last time I was in Rancho Bernardo, I strolled around Webb Lake to see what I might discover. I found the Rancho Bernardo Veterans’ Memorial (which I’ll blog about soon) and green grass and benches and many birds in a place of tranquil beauty. I saw ducks, pigeons, egrets and more. I was surprised to see so many red-winged blackbirds.
Yes, going around the small lake is a very easy walk.
These photographs trace a clockwise walk. I started at the walkway that approaches Webb Park from the east side of the Courtyard Marriott hotel.
An old plaque under a tree refers to Schurr Lake, In Memory of William C. Schurr. Was that a past name for this lake? Please leave a comment if you know some of the history.
On a park bench… In Memory of Boyd H. GraeberOn a park bench… In Loving Memory Of Tyne Long, President, Rancho Bernardo Historical Society, 1989-1999Looking back…Webb Lake 2000. Thank you to the friends of Webb Lake for their generous contributions which have made it possible for all of us to share the joys of Webb Lake for years to come.Pathway of Pride – Rancho Bernardo Community FoundationOne last look back…Dedicated June 29, 2013 – Bob Wells – for establishing this Pathway of Pride which has helped and will continue to help fund hundreds of community projects that have been of enormous benefit to the community of Rancho Bernardo.
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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
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Various works belonging to the San Diego Civic Art Collection can be experienced by visitors to the Rancho Bernardo Library. I took photos of three prominent examples a couple weekends ago.
The first work is titled Ampersand. Matt Rich, Assistant Professor of Art at the University of San Diego, created the eye-catching acrylic on canvas in 2018. It hangs on a wall above the library’s main stacks.
This particular painting is part of a series of works that riffs on the symbol of the ampersand. The ampersand holds, both symbolically and formally, the ability to represent the idea of connection.
Connection perfectly describes any library. Shelves connect readers with unexplored worlds.
The next artwork I observed in the library hangs high on a wall roughly opposite the front desk. It’s titled Salta pa’ lante (Jump Forward), by artist Alida Cervantes. The dynamic art was created in 2020. A pair of aluminum panels come alive with acrylic spray paint and oil.
Alida Cervantes is a Mexican artist who lives and works in the Tijuana and San Diego border region. Traveling daily between the US and Mexico, Cervantes’ work is characterized by an interest in power relations between race, class, gender and even species.
This diptych…is part of the artist’s exploration into the Mexican casta (caste) paintings of the 17th and 18th centuries…Cervantes presents two figures that are the offspring of individuals not only from two different races but also from two different times in history: the present and the colonial…
Finally, here’s a piece titled Primary Waveform (half circle), by artist Kelsey Brookes. The optically mysterious acrylic on wood was created in 2018. You can find it up on the second floor of the Rancho Bernardo Library, at the top of the stairs.
Kelsey Brookes is a research scientist turned artist. His paintings experiment with pop, abstract, and traditional styles while exploring scientific subject matter, including molecules, atoms, and modern biochemistry...
This sculpture is one of a series of works inspired by the Fibonacci sequence and waveforms...
From a distance the painted wood almost appears like basketwork, but give it a closer look. What are those tiny figures? Is that a reflection you see, or a complete circle that curves beyond your reach?
Stand near Primary Waveform (half circle), then gaze across the library for a commanding view of those first two works of art!
Additional works in the San Diego Civic Art Collection can be found at the library’s glass wall and gate entrance, exterior courtyard, and in the library’s study rooms.
Why not visit the Rancho Bernardo Library and see it all for yourself?
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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 library card is more valuable than you might realize! You can use your San Diego Public Library card to check out a free vehicle day-use pass for over 200 California State Parks!
I noticed this valuable information last weekend during my visit to the Rancho Bernardo Library. To receive a free pass, head over to your nearest San Diego Public Library branch and speak to the library staff.
The free pass will admit you into so many amazing State Parks, including beautiful Torrey Pines State Nature Preserve, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, Silver Strand State Beach…
You don’t have a library card? Get one at your local library! Then grab a free State Parks pass!
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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.
Surprising as it might be, Rancho Bernardo has some of the most unique and extraordinary rock art in North America!
Five hundred to one thousand years ago, indigenous people created both pictographs (rock paintings) and petroglyphs (rock carvings) in present-day Rancho Bernardo. I didn’t know this until I observed an interesting Rancho Bernardo Historical Society poster at last weekend’s RB Alive! street festival.
If you’d like to learn more about this topic, there’s an informative YouTube video you should watch. A history presentation from 2018 features analysis of Rancho Bernardo’s rock art. Photographs of the badly faded art were enhanced using special software previously used by NASA.
If you love art and have a chance to visit the Rancho Bernardo Library, make sure to head up the stairs or elevator. A long hallway on the second floor doubles as an art gallery!
On view in this gallery through the end of September are colorful works by award-winning San Diego artists Terry Anderson and Marlene Levitt. The two artists paint acrylic abstracts on the same canvas at the same time!
According to the artists’ website, their Temáre abstract paintings evoke an emotion of color and contrast...
As my photographs demonstrate, their bold, dynamic art really grabs your attention! Need some home decor? I noticed these pieces at the library are also for sale.
Are you a local or regional artist with work you’d like to exhibit in a branch of the San Diego Public Library? Check out SDPL’s Visual Arts Program and fill out an application by clicking 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 cool street festival was held today in Rancho Bernardo. Several blocks of Bernardo Center Drive filled with vendors, artists, food, entertainment and fun for the North San Diego Business Chamber’s 36th Annual RB Alive!
I walked through the festival around noontime as it got underway. A good crowd appeared quickly, attesting to the popularity of this community gathering. (Unfortunately, RB Alive! was put on hold the past few years due to COVID.)
It was interesting to learn about many of the organizations on hand. Civic groups, politicians, churches, clubs, schools, you name it–everyone was smiling and ready to greet passersby.
This was my first time experiencing the event. I took some photographs as I walked about.
The RB Karate Center was providing martial arts demonstrations on one stage.
RB Alive! is organized by the North San Diego Business Chamber. They have numerous educational programs and events that support local business.
The Ed Brown Center for Active Adults is working to convert an old lawn bowling area in Rancho Bernardo Community Park into 16 pickleball courts.
The Rancho Bernardo Historical Society has a museum at the Bernardo Winery. The museum’s exhibits include a replica mud wagon stagecoach.
The Historical Society’s table had a detailed timeline of Rancho Bernardo’s history. Thank you for all the informative brochures. I need to visit their museum some day!
If history is your thing, why not join their efforts as a volunteer?
The Rancho Bernardo Retired Senior Volunteer Patrol acts as eyes and ears for the San Diego Police Department.
Are you 50 years or older? They’re always looking for volunteers!
More smiles!
I learned the Rancho Bernardo Public Library is just down the street. So after the festival I went there. Blog posts are coming up concerning my visit!
Creative vendors had all sorts of cool crafts and art out on display…
There would be entertainment throughout the day, including live music.
Loads of food everywhere you look!
I learned the Rancho Bernardo Sunrise Rotary is engaged in many charitable projects in Mexico and developing countries. They’re fighting childhood disease, providing clean water, building houses and hospitals…
The Rancho Bernardo Community Council is Your Voice in the Community. They are an all-volunteer organization acting as an advisory board to the City of San Diego on a range of public issues.
They also organize many fun community events! They’re glad to welcome volunteers!
Even the dogs were having a great time at RB Alive!
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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.
Did you know there’s a world record bridge in San Diego’s North County?
The David Kreitzer Lake Hodges Bicycle/Pedestrian Bridge is the longest stress ribbon bridge in the world!
You’ve possibly seen the 990 foot long bridge when driving up Interstate 15 next to Lake Hodges. I walked across the remarkable bridge yesterday and noticed several information signs describing its history and unique characteristics.
The San Dieguito River travels 55 miles to the Pacific Ocean. In 1918 this section of the river was dammed creating the reservoir Lake Hodges, which has 27 miles of shoreline. The watershed of Lake Hodges covers 248 square miles.
Lake Hodges was designated a Globally Important Birding Area in 1999.
(When I was a young man, I fished with a friend for bass in Lake Hodges.)
Historic old U.S. Highway 395 became a wide hiking trail that passes by these signs.
Several bridges have spanned the water over the past century, including a wooden pile bridge near Mule Hill that was washed away after the creation of Lake Hodges.
Pictured in the above sign is the Bernardo-Lake Hodges Station Bridge in 1919. It was demolished when a nearby 1955 bridge was replaced by the dual bridges that serve Interstate 15 today.
The David Kreitzer Lake Hodges Bicycle/Pedestrian Bridge opened in 2009.
The world record bridge’s design features a long thin ribbon of concrete that produces low visual impact. Enlarge my photo of the above sign to read details of the stress ribbon bridge’s construction.
The bridge provides an elegantly simple passage through the beauty of the lake and its trees.
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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 Twitter!
If you’re ever a passenger in a vehicle heading north on Interstate 15, between West Bernardo Drive and Via Rancho Parkway, look to your right and down. You might see the heads of nearby walkers and bicyclists!
A stretch of the Coast to Crest Trail follows the busy freeway right next to and about ten feet below it. On the opposite side of the trail, not far away, stand beautiful trees that line the San Dieguito River and Lake Hodges.
During the Spring these river trees turn bright green!
Today I walked from the trailhead at the south end of Sunset Drive to the place where the Coast to Crest Trail passes under Interstate 15. (And I continued on, as you’ll see in upcoming blog posts.)
The roar of freeway traffic above me to the right . . . tranquil trees, green grasses and wildflowers of the San Dieguito River Park to my left . . . and an occasional bike or two passing by . . .
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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 Twitter!
Did you know there used to be a town named Bernardo in what is now San Diego’s North County?
Bernardo was a tiny town between Escondido and Rancho Bernardo, where Lake Hodges is located today.
The creation of Lake Hodges in 1918, accomplished by damming the Bernardo River (now called San Dieguito River), put a definite end to little Bernardo. But today people hiking the Mule Hill Trail can see several information signs that recall the history of the now vanished town.
If you’d like to walk down the Mule Hill Trail yourself, take Interstate 15 to Bear Valley Parkway at the south end of Escondido. The wide dirt trail can be found about a quarter mile east of the freeway, leading south. (You’ll see it right before Beethoven Drive.)
Before reaching the site of old Bernardo, this very easy trail passes Mule Hill, where a skirmish took place during the Mexican-American War. I’ll be blogging about that coming up.
Cart roads used by the Spanish and Mexicans before the appearance of Bernardo linked a number of Ranchos–San Bernardo, El Rincon, Del Diablo, Santa Maria, Santa Ysabel, Valle de San Jose and San Felipe–with the port of San Diego.
After the division of Rancho San Bernardo around 1870, a small village developed, known as the town of Bernardo. In addition to several houses, there was a store, post office, blacksmith shop, grange hall and public school. By 1887, the population in the surrounding farm area was approximately 400 people…
For a brief period, Bernardo was a stop for the stagecoaches between San Diego and Yuma.
The San Diego to Yuma Road was an overland trail in the mid-1800s. It was used by the Army of the West in 1846 and gold rush immigrants from 1848 through 1851. It passed through tiny Bernardo as it led northeast from Peñasquitos to Ramona, eventually connecting with the Butterfield Stage Route at Warner Springs.
The history of Rancho San Bernardo began in the late 18th century when the King of Spain took possession of all land in California. In 1823, when Mexico gained its independence, the land became Mexico’s property. Don Jose Francisco Snook, a former English sea captain, received land grants from the Mexican government, including Rancho San Bernardo…
With the passing of the Mexican rancho era came the beginning of the American era, which is represented by the nearby Sikes Adobe Farmhouse. The restored farmhouse is a historic site that one can visit a short distance down the Coast to Crest Trail. (The Mule Hill Trail is a segment of the Coast to Crest Trail.)
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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 Twitter!
Cool San Diego Sights! 