San Diego -- Balboa Park

This subject is a big one since it took me two days to see everything I wanted to see. The park is unlike anything I have ever seen. It is huge, like Central Park but with canyons and ravines running through it. In the early 1900s, the city set aside this large piece of land. It was used for the Pan American exposition which celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal. Many of the buildings in the park were built at that time. They now house 13 museums. One of the activities highly recommended was a visit to the extensive Rose Garden. I crossed over the bridge to do this and was sidetracked by what I would call a Southwestern Garden. I had heard that my niece, Kristi, loved cacti and I started out taking a few pictures for her. Then I got to thinking as I walked through this garden that it probably was the unique garden. Certainly nowhere in New England would one find a cacti garden! Furthermore, I've been preaching and really feeling, and very strongly about the waste of water that I see here in the Southwest. So, a desert garden fit with my prejudices. Anyway, look at the pics!

Another little sidetrack. As I was waiting for the tour bus to take me back downtown, I came upon the longest limo I've ever seen. As I walked by it, I asked the driver if it was for the bridal party I could see having pictures taken in the amphitheater. And he said that it was for a different bridal party than the one I could see. He told me that car was 30 feet long and asked if I'd like to look in it. Look at the pics! There were at least five bridal parties having pictures taken at the same time. At least it wasn't completely like a Moon Church wedding.

At the far end of the park, a local merchant had built an Arts and Crafts style mansion which has been given to the city. I toured the mansion and tried to take pictures outside. I really only caught a door and window that I thought were worth saving. My impression of the house, beyond the fact that I would have loved to live there, was Frank Lloyd Wright! I didn't know that much of his style fit in The Arts and Crafts school of architecture. I thought he had invented his own called to Prairie Style. I have seen a number of right houses including those he called Usonian. This house, the Marston mansion, had a great deal of woodwork. In some ways it made me think about post-and beam house where the beams were covered with finished wood. Every room had wainscoting. Both the doors and windows had a lot of glass but had vertical strips of wood dividing the glass. The floors in the public spaces were oak and each room had a border of oak flooring and then the regular oak boards in the center of the frame. The nonpublic rooms were floored in hemlock. Most every room had built in cabinets with wooden doors. The furniture in the living room was Stickley. The sitting room upstairs was furnished in Wicker and we were told that the Wicker which used to make the room feel lighter. The outside of the house was brick. It really was very attractive but I like Frank Lloyd Wright buildings. He did not design this but it felt like he could have.

I went to the San Diego zoo which is also in Balboa Park. I took some pics, mostly of animals I was unfamiliar with. While on the tour bus, we went by a section of the park labeled Kopje. Each time we passed it, I asked myself what kind of animal that could be. When I left the bus back and entered that section. Dummy!! Kopje is a South African Boer word pronounced copy and means little head. It's a little pile of rocks in which animals live. In this rock pile, there were the cutest little klipspringers (cliffspringer's). They can jump from a standing start 10 feet. They use this ability to escape from predators by jumping from rock to rock. I have to admit that the zoo didn't thrill me. Okay but not unique like I expected.

Something that did really thrill me was a Japanese garden in Balboa Park. I called my daughter-in-law, Krista, to talk about the loggia. It was unique. Over a post-and beam frame, a crosshatch of bamboo pieces were lashed together. Vines had been trained to climb over the bamboo. Beautiful. Simple. Eco friendly! the rate stone in the rock garden was just as simple and beautiful. The theme throughout the garden seemed to be water running slowly through bamboo. It was a bamboo piece that dripped of water into a piece of bamboo wage Winfield tipped over and dumped out the water. Unphotographable! of their bamboo fountains dripped water into the stone pots or simply to rein in a slight stream of water continuously. Somehow not one photograph came out. But I loved every bit of it.