SAN
DIEGO,
CA — Our Persian cat, Mutzi, sunned himself; a tow truck picked up our
daughter's oil-leaking Chevrolet van, and I drove to Balboa Park for another
day in the archives learning what I can about pioneer merchants Joseph
Mannasse and Marcus Schiller. I parked in a different area of the park
than I did the day before, all the better to see new scenery, pictured below.
Sunning Mutzi
Sandi's oil-leaking van is given a tow
En route to the archives of the San Diego Historical
Society, I parked between the San Diego Zoo and the
Carousel, so that I could enjoy more Balboa Park scenery. A lion, a
stork, and a giraffe whirled by me as
I passed the old Carousel building, shown here from a vantage point to the
south.
The miniature train caught my eye on the way to the archives (top row) and on
the way back (I took slightly
different routes) At top, photos are taken along eastern side of the tracks;
bottom, the western and northern
sides of the tracks. That is the Carousel Building in the background of
the bottom right photo.
Walking south from the Carousel one passes the Natural History Museum (north
entrance) and the
Fountain and the Reuben Fleet Science Center. The fountain is off,
perhaps to drain it of all the soap
we saw in it the other day. On the walls of the Natural History
Museum one sees banners advertising
exhibitions—and these banners I felt my camera lens pulled to, as if by some
magnetism.
Natural History Museum banners, from left, advertised "Dead Sea
Scrolls" which are coming in the
second part of this year, and "Fossil mysteries" featuring dinosaur
and mastadon bones.
Another exhibit is called "Visions," and while I contemplated that,
I thought I was having one, a parade
of Greyhound dogs. You never know what you will see next in Balboa
ark. A banner for the Model Railroad
Museum announced I was at my destination, as the archives are next door to the
Model RR Museum.
MUSIC TO THE EARS—A youngster tries out a harp on main pedestrian walkway of
Balboa
Park, while nearby some unusual sounding Australian aboriginal instruments are
demonstrated.
An African-American mime wearing white face and the Casa del Prado were among
the sights
I saw in the afternoon as I left the archives of the Casa de Balboa.
Arches within arches—I am so glad that they are not golden. This area
is part of the Casa del Prado complex
Casa del Prado Theatre Building—This is the home of the
Junior Theatre so nearly all the time one can
find excited children and camera-toting parents. I fit right in.
Had I lingered, someone surely would have
asked "Which on is your grandchild?" Or if they were extra
polite, maybe, "Which child is yours?" These
exposures are from the southeast and from the east.
Across the street from the Casa del Prado is a lawn area with a giant fig tree
and a Palm tree (in fore-
ground). Then it is just a hop to the Spanish Village, where local
artists have studios and visitors may
come in and watch them work (as well as buy their arts and crafts).
Walking through the area, I saw
why people say "dogs are chick magnets," enjoyed the tile pattern,
and the play of sunlight on the
courtyard, and then shot the village through the archway of the northern
entrance.
HOMEWARD COMMUTE—The nice thing about going home in the afternoon is that
traffic is slow
enough, or the traffic lights are frequent enough, that one can observe the
surroundings and even snap
a photo through the windshield. The drawback is that the light sometimes
gets a little dim, especially
through the windshield. But on this day, I saw the University Avenue
bridge near Florida Street from the
west; drove down the slopes of Texas Street into Mission Valley, and then
after getting off the Interstate
8, had a chance to see the signs of the times--at least as they appeared in
Grantville: a billboard promoting
cable news station CNN and one of its anchormen, Anderson Cooper, traveling
with some military unit
somewhere; a man so intensely dreaming of Big Bear that he is surrounded by a
snow flurry; and an
advertisement for Santee townhouses in "the low $400,000," an
indication that San Diego's super-heated
housing market is cooling down a bit. On Mission Gorge Road, one can
still see a gravel works, mining
rocks near the San Diego River. And futher on are the familiar hills of
Mission Trails Regional Park.