The winter solstice occurred early this morning. The days will now begin to grow longer. Christmas is nearly here.
On the beach by the Hotel del Coronado, Bill Pavlacka, The Sandcastle Man, created a unique sand sculpture today that pays tribute to the 2024 winter solstice!
His fun sand sculpture, and another that rises a few steps away, also celebrate the holiday season! Season’s Greetings!
This is the 17th year that The Sandcastle Man has been making sand sculptures in Coronado. Whenever I walk along the ocean side of the Del, I always look for his latest creation!
Some photographs…
…
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 gigantic sand sculpture now stands near the foot of the Imperial Beach Pier. The “Back 2 IB” retro sculpture, created using 80 cubic yards of sand, celebrates nostalgia from the 1980s. It’s the centerpiece of Imperial Beach’s family friendly 2024 Sun & Sea Festival!
Carved into the massive sculpture are images from the 1980s that many will recognize. Pac-Man. Ghostbusters. MTV. Rubik’s Cube. Cabbage Patch Kids. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Back to the Future. Nintendo Entertainment System. A video game arcade. A boom box. Music on cassette tapes…
Is this the coolest sand sculpture ever, or what? Why was it built? Each summer, during the annual Sun & Sea Festival, Imperial Beach is also known as Sandcastle City!
When I visited the festival late this morning, the local sand artists, including members of the Imperial Beach Posse Sand Carvers, appeared to be nearly finished. They’ve been working on their monumental work of art for several days.
I walked around the “Back 2 IB” sand sculpture and took these photographs of the sand sculptors hard at work…
…
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 Sun & Sea Festival returned to Imperial Beach for 2024, attracting a good crowd as usual. And, as always, the annual event beside the Imperial Beach Pier featured sand sculptures!
A monumental sand mega castle was being finished by a group of local artists late this morning when I walked through the festival.
The “Back 2 IB” sculpture celebrates nostalgia. Carved into the sand are fun retro images that bring back fond memories of the 1980s, from Back to the Future, to Ghostbusters, to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, to Cabbage Patch Kids, to Rubik’s Cube, to Pac-Man. (I’ll be sharing more photos of the amazing sand sculpture in my next blog post!)
The festival also featured a Kids-n-Kastles competition, with 15 team entries built on the beach north of the pier. There was no adult competition this year. Sadly, there weren’t enough sponsors.
The COVID pandemic and sewage coming from the Tijuana River polluting the ocean off Imperial Beach have visibly hurt this long-running event, not to mention the Imperial Beach community and local businesses. Nobody was out in the water, apart from several surfers who were seriously risking their health.
I spoke to people at a Surfrider Foundation tent. They said very slow progress is being made to solve the sewage problem. The ocean here has been off limits for about two years now. It’s a problem that seems to have no end.
In spite of this, however, there was plenty of fun to be had at the 2024 Sun & Sea Festival! Lots of food! Live music! A fantastic location and SoCal beach vibe!
Here are my photos…
…
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.
An extraordinary event was enjoyed by a good crowd today at the Hotel del Coronado! The Seaside Victorian Carnival entertained hotel guests and the public with old-fashioned carnival games, food, jugglers, magicians, plate spinning, aerial silks, tightrope and other circus acts!
Tents on the beach featured nostalgic games like ring toss and penny pitch. Kids were having a blast trying to win a prize. Funds raised benefited a variety of charitable organizations in Coronado.
Several sand sculptures could also be enjoyed. And flying high above the sand were students from San Diego State University. Check out my photos of their amazing feats!
On the boardwalk, people lined up for caramel apples, chocolate kettle corn, giant pretzels and other yummy treats!
The main attraction was a slate of circus acts. I stayed awhile, watched several jugglers (one on stilts), an amazing chair stacker/balancer/juggler, and an aerialist smiling and spinning above a rapt audience!
Another perfect day at Coronado’s world-famous Victorian beach resort!
…
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 (formerly known as Twitter)!
Pelicans made of sand live inside the Coronado Community Center!
This extraordinary art is found on a wall near the community center’s front desk. The bas-relief sandcast sculpture of pelicans taking flight was created by artist Charles R. Faust, whose incredible work can be seen all around San Diego.
A short biography of Charles Faust is on a nearby plaque. Not only did he cast many beautiful, highly detailed sand sculptures like this at his Ocean Beach studio, but he worked as Architectural Design Director for the Zoological Society of San Diego. He came up with the idea for open air animal enclosures at the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Wild Animal Park.
There are some great Faust panels inside the lobby of the “Mister A’s building” in Bankers Hill. They tell the history of San Diego. You can see those here.
…
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!
As one might expect, beautiful holiday decorations surround the elegant Hotel del Coronado this year. The world-famous Victorian beach resort always seems to go all out to make guests and more casual visitors like me feel special.
Let’s walk around the Hotel Del and look at Christmas trees, wreaths, festive lights, the seasonal ice rink, and even two sand sculptures on the nearby beach!
(The only imperfection I observed is a few of the poinsettias in the next photo had been knocked or blown over.)
…
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!
It’s easy to explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag. There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
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!
How many big events are scheduled for this coming Labor Day weekend? Searching online event calendars, I haven’t noticed too many. That certainly wasn’t the case five years ago!
Back in September 2017, during Labor Day weekend, San Diego hosted an amazing international sand sculpture competition on Broadway Pier, another beautiful Festival of Sail on the Embarcadero, and there was the traditional stickball tournament in Little Italy.
Then later that September I recorded even more fun and inspirational stuff! Like Brazilian Day in Mission Beach, Fiestas Patrias in Old Town, the Trolley Dances downtown, and a special Remember Me Thursday in Balboa Park!
Here’s your opportunity to relive some of those moments. Check out the upcoming links for all of the colorful photographs!
Do you know of any fun public events coming up this weekend? Leave a comment! I might head on over with my camera!
…
This blog now features thousands of photos around San Diego! Are you curious? There’s lots of cool stuff to check out!
Here’s the Cool San Diego Sights main page, where you can read the most current blog posts. If you’re using a phone or small mobile device, click those three parallel lines up at the top–that opens up my website’s sidebar, where you’ll see the most popular posts, a search box, and more!
To enjoy future posts, you can also “like” Cool San Diego Sights on Facebook or follow me on Twitter.
The three Audible sand sculptures that are being carved along MLK Promenade for 2022 Comic-Con are nearly complete. And they are beyond amazing!
Check them out!
The artistry is right up there with that of world-class Sand Masters. You know, those internationally famous sand sculptors who’ve come to San Diego to compete many past summers, before the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
The extraordinary Comic-Con sculptures promote three of Audible’s original spoken word shows…
My favorite sand sculpture of the three promotes the Audible original Impact Winter.A second amazing sculpture promotes The Sandman. (Those figures are definitely sand!)And lastly, an intricate sand sculpture that promotes the Audible original Moriarty: The Devil’s Game. Looks to me like more sand carving will be done on this one before Comic-Con officially opens tomorrow!
If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click here!
…
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!
Bugs Bunny came out of his hole this morning, emerging on a sidewalk in San Diego. Walking around, chomping on a carrot, what did he see?
He saw that preparations for 2022 Comic-Con continue downtown at breakneck speed!
Among other things…
A big silver Vulcan salute will greet visitors to Star Trek’s cool Starfleet Outpost. Most Comic-Con offsites open to the public on Thursday. (I believe I saw this big hand at the Comic-Con Museum during their Gene Roddenberry exhibit.)The second Severance building wrap on the Hard Rock Hotel is done. Looks like some coworkers I’ve known.More photo op panels have appeared at the NBCU Corner.Boxes full of Good Guys. The clerk needs to check the shelves. One isn’t completely unwrapped.The Rookie wraps are completed, decorating Petco Park.Many box trucks in line. It’s the Comic-Con move in at the San Diego Convention Center. Here come the big exhibitors!The Bandai offsite behind the Marriott Marquis is taking form.A wall provides the history of Dragon Ball films.Very cool!The Krapopolis super slide now has Greek graphics. Where are the oars?The Gray Man offsite now has rubble.The Audible sand sculptures, still being created, are like works of art.Another amazing sand sculpture.The Peanuts offsite activation on MLK Promenade will feature The Armstrong Project.The House of the Dragon castle’s appearance just keeps getting more awesome. This might end up being one of the coolest ever Comic-Con offsites…A very sedate, tranquil Fifth Avenue in the Gaslamp Quarter, on a quiet Tuesday morning. That will change drastically in two days!
If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click here!
…
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!
Look at this! Even more cool stuff is appearing in downtown San Diego on the Sunday before 2022 Comic-Con!
A castle has materialized, Batman has arrived (in two places that I saw), and a couple of Comic-Con offsite activations have begun construction. I spied something awesome going past on a forklift and a mysterious something you might help me identify!
Workers getting everything ready have three more days. And the big Petco Park Interactive Zone is still a parking lot full of cars. Better get busy!
Some signs for the Comic-Con Shuttle Bus Stops are out on sidewalks already.A unique Batmobile has arrived! I saw this cool vehicle by the Hard Rock Hotel. I was told it belongs to a perennial Batman cosplayer!The NBCU Corner by the Tin Fish is just beginning to set up. I was told the inside of the Tin Fish restaurant will be modified for Comic-Con.Padres fans chill out at Gaslamp trolley station as Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty pass by.The very cool Severance wrap on the Hard Rock Hotel seems to be finished.The Krapopolis wrap on the Omni is nearly done.The Shrek dragon Elizabeth is romping across the Starbucks window at the Hilton Bayside.Okay, guys. I told you I’d include your photo. Having too much fun by a creepy forest, which has been installed at the FX activation near the Hilton.A gloomy gray, creepy look at the American Horror Stories wrap in progress. It was overcast in the mid-afternoon.Woohoo! Crates full of Bandai props have arrived behind the Marriott near the marina. Dragon Ball is coming!Multiple crates indicate Statue of Great Ape Vegeta. Must be huge. Maybe it’s mislabeled, and it’s actually Grape Ape…Look what I spotted on multiple forklifts passing by on the bayfront walkway. It looks like some Comic-Con swag bags will feature a Jim Lee design. (Possibly more than one!)Marriott Welcomes Comic-Con 2022.Look at what’s being attached to the Manchester Grand Hyatt’s parking garage! Batman on a big banner!Batman, Robin and Batgirl are coming this Fall to Cartoonito on HBO Max.Workers are still getting the Super Slide ready at the FOX Krapopolis offsite. Kids across the street at The New Childrens Museum were gazing at the slide dreamily.The Gray Man offsite for Comic-Con is coming along rapidly.I suppose we’ll be walking through there.They were testing the big video screen.The Audible sand sculptures are materializing slowly. They’re really cool.A creepy sand skull!On the Hilton Gaslamp we’re informed that Beavis and Butt-Head are the heroes that we deserve. Thanks a lot.Woah! The House of the Dragon offsite will be a big castle! What lurks inside? A dragon? It must have very large and tough claws.Star Trek’s 10 Forward is now located at 100 North Forward Avenue, by the Happy Does smiley.Do those doors slide open with a quick swoosh?A prop on the sidewalk outside the Star Trek: Picard offsite activation, now being built. Does this futuristic contraption mix matter and antimatter? Or strong drinks?
If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click here!
…
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! 