Super Girl Pro is taking place this weekend in Oceanside, California near the pier. The big event, the largest women’s surfing competition in the world, is free and open to the public, and the pier is the best place to watch the surfing action!
The longboard competition was so close to the pier I was able to take some pretty good pics that you might enjoy. These athletes are incredible. They ride waves for a great distance, while engaging in complicated footwork.
Check it out! The event resumes tomorrow, Sunday.
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A memorial to fallen San Diego County law enforcement officers stands across an outdoor plaza at the City of Chula Vista Police Department.
When Heroes Fall…We Remember was created by Chula Vista artist Mark Martensen in 2004. A central bronze sculpture depicts two bowed officers facing a curved wall.
Beneath fluttering flags, the black marble wall is engraved with the names of heroes from different law enforcement agencies throughout the San Diego region who’ve given their lives in the line of duty.
Enjoy photos of three cool murals I spotted during a recent Ocean Beach walk.
The above mural must be relatively new. It’s by Cong Nguyen (@KINGNCONG). You can find it on the side of the OB Noodle House and Sake Bar on Cable Street. This mural replaced a long-time OB girl mural that I photographed here. (It’s the first photo you’ll see in that old blog post.)
The next mural with a big colorful parrot was painted last year on the Ocean Beach Hotel by the amazing local artist team of Carly Ealey and Christopher Konecki.
Finally, check out this cool alley mural I must’ve missed back when I photographed the “Hippie Dog” here. It’s on another side of the same building!
This awesome bee lady artwork was painted by Celeste Byers back in 2017.
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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!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
The fascinating history of Carlsbad includes its very first church, St. Michael’s By-the-Sea Episcopal Church, built in 1894.
St. Michael’s By-the-Sea is located on Carlsbad Boulevard at Christiansen Way, a block south of Magee Park.
During a recent adventure in San Diego’s North County, I walked around the church’s original structure, which stands by several other later buildings.
I paused to read this plaque…
The first church built in Carlsbad was St. Michael’s By-the-Sea Episcopal Church. Originally erected in 1894 overlooking the ocean on Oak Avenue, the quaint Gothic structure was moved to its current site in 1959 when Florence Shipley Magee donated an adjacent site for a new church.
Original redwood paneling, oak pews, and a Victorian pump organ are all still in good condition. The only alterations are a new entry, replacing one which led directly into the choir area at the front of the chapel, and a new heating and air conditioning system.
Far from being a relic of the past, the chapel is used for regular Sunday and weekday services as well as for weddings and funerals.
PLAQUE COURTESY OF THE CARLSBAD HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION
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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!
Huge crowds converged today in downtown Chula Vista for the big 25th Annual Lemon Festival!
Families were walking along Third Avenue enjoying the lemony sights and tasty smells.
Musicians performed on the Zesty Stage. Kids played and made crafts in the Lil’ Lemons zone. Vendors had all sorts of lemon-themed goodies on display, and it seemed that fresh lemonade could be found every few steps! Many neighbors were wearing bright yellow!
Why a big Lemon Festival in Chula Vista?
Once upon a time, before asphalt streets crisscrossed the sunny landscape, agriculture in San Diego’s South Bay was famous for its abundant lemon production. Our climate is perfect to grow citrus.
In the early 20th century there were almost two thousand acres of lemon groves around Chula Vista, which called itself the Lemon Capital of the World.
Enjoy the following fun photos! I walked up and down Third Avenue a couple times, taking in the festive scene, before I headed off to another cool Chula Vista location, as you will see in an upcoming blog post!
This super nice lady handed me some literature concerning the Arts in the Park festival, which is coming up in Chula Vista on August 27th from 10-5 in Memorial Park.
Mark it on your calendar!
If you’d like to see a few more photographs these great chalk art murals, click here!
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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!
Around noon today, chalk artists were doing their thing at the 25th Annual Lemon Festival in Chula Vista!
The enormously popular community event is taking place today in Chula Vista’s historic downtown, along Third Avenue.
I paused to admire the half dozen creative works, most of which were in progress.
As you might expect, all this lemony artwork required a fair amount of yellow chalk!
Sweet!
Chalk art by Dorothy Corona.Chalk art by Brenda Mora.Chalk art by Eric Arcala.Chalk art by Colin Moyer.Chalk art by Meg Canilang.Chalk art by Cecilia Linayao.
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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!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
John D. Spreckels and his family owned the Hotel del Coronado during the first half of the 20th century.
In 1906 Spreckels began construction of a palatial home in Coronado. His mansion would stand at 1630 Glorietta Boulevard, across from his extraordinarily elegant Hotel del Coronado.
The Italian Renaissance style Spreckels Mansion, designed by renowned architect Harrison Albright (who also designed the Spreckels Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park), would be completed in 1908.
The above photograph was taken in 1915. The description of this public domain photo on Wikimedia Commons is: Promotional image of John D. Spreckels’ home on Coronado for marketing the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in Balboa Park, San Diego, California.
If the building appears familiar, that’s because much of it was incorporated into today’s Glorietta Bay Inn…
When I visited Coronado a couple months ago, the friendly Glorietta Bay Inn receptionists behind the front counter allowed me to take a few interior photos. What I found most interesting was one framed image on a wall.
The following is described as: a photograph of an original 1911 postcard of the Spreckels home, just after completion and before the addition of the music room in 1913…
Here are two more outside photos taken by my camera for comparison…
To learn more about John D. Spreckels, one of early San Diego’s most influential entrepreneurs, developers and philanthropists, read his Wikipedia article here.
You’ll learn his Coronado mansion included six bedrooms, three baths, a parlor, dining room and library at the cost of $35,000. At that time, Spreckels’ Mansion featured a brass cage elevator, a marble staircase with leather-padded handrails, skylights, marble floors and some of the Island’s most spectacular gardens. The home was built with reinforced steel and concrete, an earthquake precaution Spreckels insisted upon after living through the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Spreckels lived in the Glorietta Boulevard mansion until his death in 1926.
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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!
The 1887 Shipley-Magee House, home of the Carlsbad Historical Society, contains a museum that history lovers must visit. I walked through its doors earlier this year to discover a treasure trove of artifacts, documents and old photographs from Carlsbad’s earliest days.
The rooms of this historical Craftsman-style house are not only filled with fascinating exhibits, but with furnishings that represent how life must have been like for many in the late 19th century.
Enjoy the following photographs. Better yet, go visit yourself!
The Carlsbad Historical Society’s website is here, with the hours and location of the Shipley-Magee House and its museum.
The society’s website contains pages and pages detailing Carlsbad’s history: from the first settlers, to the construction of the Magee House by Samuel Church Smith (one of the founders of the Carlsbad Land and Water Company), to the layout of downtown Carlsbad in 1925.
If you’d like to see photos of Magee Park, where the house is located, along with several other historic structures and a beautiful rose garden, you can check out an old blog post here.
You can also enjoy photographs of several historical buildings in Carlsbad here, and for more on Carlsbad’s famous Twin Inns, click here and here!
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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!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
A very beautiful tall ship has returned to San Diego. The Mystic Whaler is visiting the Maritime Museum of San Diego prior to a little shipyard work down in the South Bay.
I snapped photos of Mystic Whaler in January, as it was making its way up to the Channel Islands, where it now takes students on educational sailing excursions.
The 110-foot, 97-ton schooner was built in Florida in 1967, and once hosted cruises at its previous base in Connecticut. That explains the Mystic name.
I was excited to see this amazing tall ship again, and my camera promptly came out, of course!
Enjoy a few new photos…
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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!
Should you find yourself at Escondido’s Grape Day Park on a Saturday afternoon, be sure to walk over to that green corrugated metal building near the old train depot museum. You’ll be able to enjoy a look inside the Bandy Blacksmith & Wheelwright Shop and see instructors, students and Bandy Blacksmith Guild members at work!
I happened to be walking by a couple Saturdays ago, so I took these photographs.
Students were learning the basics of blacksmithing near one of the forges, and several friendly gentlemen were busy inside the woodworking shop building a dray wagon that will eventually hold a portable blacksmith shop for public demonstration.
You can learn much more about the Bandy Blacksmith Guild by clicking here. Perhaps sign up for a class!
The history of the Tom Bandy Blacksmith is complex and interesting. You can read about that history and learn how the present structure ended up in Grape Day Park by clicking here.
When I read the page concerning past projects of the Bandy Blacksmith Guild, I was surprised that guild members produced most of the metalwork for the Maritime Museum of San Diego’s replica Spanish galleon San Salvador. (Yes, the same ship that took part in Comic-Con last week! If you’d like to see photos of San Salvador being built, click here.)
Another past project of the Bandy Blacksmith Guild was the restoration of the San Diego Centennial Cannon, which I once photographed inside the Whaley House Museum. You can view a photograph of that historic cannon here!
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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!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
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