For much of the 20th century, Naval Training Center San Diego was the place where Navy recruits learned what their new life at sea would be like.
Today, NTC Liberty Station occupies those old Navy buildings and barracks. The popular San Diego destination contains museums, artist studios, shops, offices, restaurants . . . and thought-provoking installations of public art.
A Dime to Call Home is sculptural art that I photographed during my last visit. The unusual art, made of cement, soft clothing and nautical rope, is located near some archways along Liberty Station’s North Promenade. It was created by artist Michele Montjoy of Oceanside, California, and installed in 2019.
A nearby sign explains:
Using sculptural forms reminiscent of sea bags and nautical rope, A Dime to Call Home is a conversation about the shifts of identity, location and routine that recruits encounter when they enter the military, as well as the connection they have to their family, home and previous life.
I took several photographs.
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Hundreds of ravenous carnivorous plants lined up for lunch in Balboa Park this weekend!
The San Diego Carnivorous Plant Society held its 10th Anniversary Carnivorous Plant Show and Sale in Room 101 of the Casa del Prado, and a good crowd turned out to see the hungry–and often beautiful–insect-eaters!
I arrived just in time for the Venus flytrap feeding at 1 pm.
We watched as living insects became lunch. I learned it takes several days for a carnivorous plant’s digestive juices to do their work, so perhaps each meal is a couple of breakfasts, lunches and dinners.
We also learned how a Venus flytrap has something like a timer. If a trigger hair in the trapping leaf structure detects a movement, the plants will wait a short bit to see whether movement is detected again. Then the leaves rapidly close like a hungry green mouth!
Once digestion is complete, the trapping leaves reopen, revealing an empty insect husk that can be blown away by the wind or washed away in a rain.
If you want to join the San Diego Carnivorous Plant Society or simply want to learn more about it, here’s their website.
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Is there anything edible not deep fried at the San Diego County Fair? Walk past the endless food stands and it might seem that way!
Of course, there are many non-deep fried offerings everywhere you turn at the fair, like burritos, hot dogs, hamburgers, barbeque, turkey legs, cinnamon rolls or ice cream. But who hasn’t made a joke about the numerous, sometimes bizarre deep fried treats that might tempt curious fairgoers?
Deep fried pizza.Deep fried decadence: Mexican funnel cakes.Totally fried Oreo.Fried s’mores on a stick.Fried shrimp with French fries.Totally fried avocados.Totally fried Twinkies.Fried chicken, of course.Fried veggies. (Is that more healthy?)Bacon wrapped pickle totally fried!Deep fried pork sandwich.
Yum!
Lip smacking good!
Where’s my bottle of antacid?
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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!
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The multi-day 2023 San Diego Fringe Festival is now underway! Most of the very inventive Fringe performances can be enjoyed in Balboa Park, at either the Centro Cultural de la Raza or the Marie Hitchcock Puppet Theater. For a list of the festival’s complete lineup, click here!
This afternoon I sat in the audience at a very unique performance. The Coffee Plays, in five theatrical acts (each concerning types of coffee from around the world) was a fun mixture of storytelling, music, singing, coffee history, and love for the drink.
At certain points during the performance, members of the audience got to sample each type of coffee, courtesy of Mr. Green’s Coffee Beans. The Dalgona, The Bunn, The Kona, The Sumatra, The Jamoke. Those watching, as they ingested caffeine, enjoyed additional stimulation provided by the talented actors!
Fringe performances are usually unusual and typically untypical. Small, intimate audiences enjoy the efforts of often little-known artists. The audience determines whether a production is successful or less-than-successful. (Fortunately, I didn’t see any bags of rotten tomatoes.) Those who buy a ticket can’t really go wrong, because each performance is less than an hour and only ten dollars.
The Coffee Plays was amusing, inventive, and brimming with delicious humor. It did seem to drag and ramble in a few places, as an amateur production might, but overall it was an enjoyable experience. The audience really drank it up!
The Coffee Plays was co-produced by San Diego Black Ensemble Theatre and Asian Story Theater.
Check out the San Diego Fringe Festival website here and see what creative craziness awaits!
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Drivers heading down G Street in downtown San Diego’s East Village might observe something unusual. Between 14th Street and 15th Street two relocated old buildings have been raised above the ground as they are being restored.
Why the restoration of these historical buildings? The Murray Apartments Building and the Daggett Family Residence will stand at the edge of downtown’s large future park: the East Village Green!
According to the Barnhart-Reese Construction website, the 4.1 acre community park…will include a 13,657-square-foot community center, an underground parking garage, a children’s playground, an outdoor stage, dog parks, a water fountain and a games area. The East Village Green is expected to be completed in early 2025.
What about the two historical buildings? The Save Our Heritage Organisation website states: The Murray Apartments were constructed in 1903 at an unknown location and moved to 14th Street during the 1920s. The 1890s Daggett Family Residence was relocated in the 1940s…
I can’t wait to see the finished East Village Green park with its two handsome Victorian buildings!
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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!
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There’s a small building in Solana Beach’s historical downtown that appears very unusual. The wood structure seems quaintly out of place, as if it belongs in a rural setting. I stumbled upon this building while walking down Acacia Avenue, about a block south of Plaza Street.
According to a plaque, the building that today houses Sindi’s Snack Shack began in 1931 as a detached garage for the Witmer family’s residence and drug store.
I found this page on the Solana Beach Civic and Historical Society’s website with an old photo of the Witmer drug store’s storefront on Highway 101.
Witmer’s Sandwiches, Fountain and Sundries sold patent medicines and odds and ends, plus featured a soda fountain.
There’s also a description of their garage’s history. From the early 1980s up until the COVID-19 pandemic, it was home to a breakfast spot called Hideaway Cafe.
Here’s the original Witmer garage as it is today:
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One of San Diego’s iconic landmarks is the statue of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo near the end of Point Loma, at Cabrillo National Monument.
Over the years there has been a controversy concerning Cabrillo’s place of birth: Portugal or Spain? I covered that in my previous blog post.
The original statue of Cabrillo in the park, by Portuguese sculptor Alvaro DeBree, was commissioned by the Portuguese government. After years of exposure to the weather, that first statue was relocated to Ensenada.
Portuguese sculptor Joas Chartes Almeida carved an exact replica of the original statue out of a more resistant stone, and it was installed in at Cabrillo National Monument in 1988.
During my last trip to Cabrillo National Monument, a ranger inside the Visitor Center showed me a National Park Service document that provides a Brief History of the Original Cabrillo Statue:
In 1949, some 36 years after its establishment as a memorial to Juan Cabrillo, a statue of Cabrillo was finally installed at the monument. The statue had been commissioned by the Portuguese government in 1935 as a gift to the state of California and was to be exhibited in the Portuguese exhibit at the San Francisco Exposition of 1940. The work of Alvaro De Bree, a young Portuguese sculptor, the 14-foot-high, seven-ton statue was not exhibited at the fair as intended, but was instead stored in a private garage in San Francisco. Following a considerable amount of effort, the city of San Diego secured the statue, and it was installed at the Naval Training Center facing Ballast Point. The official dedication of the site took place on September 28, 1942, the 400th anniversary of Cabrillo’s landing.
In 1947, the San Diego Historical Society proposed that the statue be moved to the Cabrillo National Monument. The Chief of the Museum Bureau in Washington, after examining photographs judged the work to be “a satisfactory piece of memorial sculpture” and declared that it appeared suitable “from an artistic standpoint.” The Park Service accepted the statue with the stipulation that the city fund the costs for a base for the statue and for moving it to the monument.
The dedication ceremony took place on September 28, 1949. The Mayor of San Diego, Harley E. Knox, formally presented the statue to the National Park Service and Dr. Manuel Rocheta, chancellor of the Portuguese Embassy in Washington, D.C., delivered an address.
The 1988 replica of the original statue at Cabrillo National Monument.
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Not far from the front entrance to the Hotel del Coronado grows a tree you might have seen in a classic movie.
It’s the Dragon Tree, which appears briefly in the 1958 comedy Some Like it Hot, starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon.
Here’s a page on the Hotel Del’s website about the filming of Some Like it Hot. In the movie the world-famous Victorian beach resort is called the Seminole Ritz.
When I was walking around the Hotel del Coronado late last month, I noticed the unusual Dragon Tree and then a nearby plaque…
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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!
Why was there a Sumatran tiger skull outside in Balboa Park today?
Because the skull’s flesh had been devoured by a mass of skin beetles. And those beetles (and their very hungry larvae) would be a nuisance if they escaped indoors!
Scientists from the nearby San Diego Natural History Museum were carefully preparing the Sumatran tiger skull for their collection!
The museum’s Birds and Mammals Department already contains tens of thousands of specimens. I was told preserved specimens, including this tiger skull, are very useful when it comes to comparative anatomy.
I’ve learned that Birds and Mammals Department curator Philip Unitt is the author of The Birds of San Diego County, which happens to be on my bookshelf! (It should be on yours, too.)
I noticed another critter in a nearby container waiting for the skin beetle (Dermestidae) treatment. A gray fox that was road kill in La Jolla would provide dinner for the beetles next!
Funny. I was visiting Balboa Park to check out the ongoing preparations for December Nights. Which just goes to show–you never know what you’ll discover when walking through this amazing park!
The San Diego Natural History Museum, like many other Balboa Park museums, will be open free to the public during December Nights!
Here’s the beetles’ next meal: a gray fox…
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