Whenever the tide goes negative the Cerezo Bluffs tide pools beckon. There is only a short window of time when the loitering intertidal organisms, which are usually safe and sound under a blanket of water and seagrass, can be discovered. Today, the top shelf treasures were a sea hare and a brittle star. I was …
County of San Diego Parks and Recreation sells an annual park pass for $40 to San Diego residents. You have to visit a park once a month for the year to make it worth the money, but it doesn’t take that many visits to make it worth while (we don’t always have three one dollar …
In 1973, Wilderness Gardens became the first nature preserve for San Diego Parks and Recreation. It is located just a few miles east of Pala Casino, but feels much further away. The 584 acre preserve looks like it did when the Luiseño people inhabited the area. (We found a few rocks with mortars, one on …
Borrego Springs is an interesting place to visit. It is completely surrounded by Anza Borrego State Park (the largest California State Park, and the largest desert state park in United States) and so gets plenty of tourism, but seems to be stuck in time. With just over 2,000 residents, the little light pollution earned Borrego …
La Casa del Zorro originally opened its doors in 1937, as the Desert Lodge. On its forty two acres of property there are tennis courts, twenty six pools (most of which are private, attached to casitas), shuffle board, giant chess, croquet, water features, a jogging path, a restaurant, and more. After spending the night here …
Dennis Avery, the owner of Galleta Meadows/ Borrego Springs benefactor had a vision; he wanted to adorn his 1,500 acre property with the freestanding art of Perris artist, Ricardo Breceda. Breceda has created over 500 metal sculptures, over 130 of which are located on Galleta Meadows Estate. Almost every sculpture is located right along side …
The San Diego Zoo recently reopened per state guidelines. Since we are members we decided to see for ourselves how the new reservation system is. Unlike the Living Desert Zoo in Palm Desert you are not given a time slot but can come at any time throughout the day. We arrived in the afternoon and …
The Los Angeles Arboretum is a 127 acre park located in Arcadia, just an hour and a half from Oceanside. In the late 1800s the land was owned by Lucky Baldwin, Arcadia’s founder and first mayor. In 1947, almost four decades after Lucky’s death, the land was jointly purchased by the State of California and …
In 2020 Live Oak Park turned one hundred. Part of the dedication ceremony in 1920 included voting on a name. Live Oak Park was unanimously chosen. Its history goes back much further than a century. The now twenty seven acre park was originally inhabited by the Luiseño people, who depended on the oaks to make …
The Oceanside Civic Center in Downtown (listed on the National Register of Historic Places) was built in 1927. It was designed by Irving Gill, also known as the father of modern architecture. In 1986, a bid was won by architect Charles Moore to complete the civic center, including a public library, city hall, Oceanside Harbor …