While I was not aiming to get any aviation photography done while I was in San Diego, I don’t think it is wrong to grab a few shots of passing aircraft if they happen to come my way. It’s not like I planned for it to happen. While we were up at Cabrillo, a C-130 launched out of NAS North Island. It was still a reasonably large distance away from us but I did manage to get a few shots of it as it climbed out in our general direction. At least it stopped me from getting withdrawal symptoms.
While other parts of Balboa Park have a very ordered look to them, the Alcazar garden is an interesting contrast. The beds are laid out in a pattern for sure but the plants that grow have a far more natural feel to them. It doesn’t have the feel of a perfectly manicured garden but instead feels a bit more like what the natural plant growth would be if things had been left to their own devices. It makes the place feel more relaxed as a result.
While it was a nice place to relax for a while, it was a bit tricky to find a way to convey the relaxed nature of things photographically. The type of plants gets a little lost when you are looking at the wider view of the garden and the detail of the plants loses the feeling of the overall space. Perhaps you will just have to take my word for it!
When we still lived in the UK, I took part in a charity bike ride. The ride was from London to Paris and was in aid of the Royal British Legion. Spread over 4 days, the first leg was from London to Dover and over on the ferry to Calais, the second leg was from Calais to Abbeville, the third was Abbeville to Beauvais and the last was Beauvais to Paris. The first leg was not a lot of fun. Eighty miles through the south east on some busy roads when you were pretty much left to your own devices was not too relaxing. The trip through France was a totally different story.
For our whole ride through France we were escorted by motor cyclists. It was like being in the Tour de France. As we approached, the traffic pulled aside and the motor bikes cleared our path. Red lights and stop signs meant nothing. In each town at which we stopped, the town would turn out to provide us with food and wine (not a good idea when there is a big climb straight after lunch) and entertainment. Everyone was unbelievably welcoming and we were constantly being cheered along by anyone we passed.
Each town we stopped overnight in would have a parade. The remembrance ceremony each time would be a really well supported event and I felt like I knew the Marseillaise by heart by the end of the trip. The first two days were eighty miles each, the third was a slightly easier seventy miles and the last day was under sixty. I had always thought of northern France as quite flat. I will never make that mistake again.
The final day was pretty impressive. We rode through the outskirts of Paris coming through areas I had heard of before but never visited. Then we were running in to the center of the city itself. The run up to l’arc de Triomphe with all of the traffic was an amazing feeling. The whole group together with our police escort stopped Paris traffic. We rode around the monument before parking our bikes and then walking up the Champs Elysée before holding a final remembrance ceremony under the arch itself. Quite an impressive event and one that really meant something after the effort to get there.
I only had a small film camera with me so there aren’t too many shots and they were taken while on the move. Hopefully they will convey something of what was a really cool trip.
As we wandered around the botanic garden in Balboa Park, I was quite interested in a plant that had branches with an odd oval shape repeated across their surface. I mentioned it to Nancy and she had seen something similar in another part of the garden but that had been cut off. The cross section of the branch was more interesting than the surface apparently.
We spent a short while hunting for where she had seen this before and when we found it, she was proved correct. The outside of the branch had the same pattern as I had seen earlier. The inside was certainly unusual. Rather than try and describe it, I shall just let you take a look for yourselves.
Located in Balboa Park is the Japanese Friendship Garden. Just alongside the Spreckels auditorium (which had an event underway whose speakers were sufficiently loud to somewhat diminish the peacefulness of the garden), it drops down into a valley in the park. Work is currently underway on some new areas and, after walking through the top and seeing that building work was underway lower down, I was a bit concerned that it might prove to be a little lacking in interest.
However, once we dropped down the steps and into the valley, it became apparent that there was more to see lower down than up above. The garden was beautifully laid out with a number of different pathways to take you through the trees, around the blossoms and past the water features. A tour was underway while we were there which actually served well to keep most people together and us, therefore, with a bit more space and peace (other than the noise from next door) to enjoy the garden.
Someone had come in a kimono to have their picture take so we were moving around trying to avoid getting in their way. Some of the other visitors seemed a bit more oblivious! Our timing was good for the blossoms to be in good condition. Obviously that was not something we had planned but we were happy to take advantage.
The north end of Coronado Island is the home of the US Navy’s NAS North Island. Home to a lot of helicopters as well as an overhaul facility for F/A-18 Hornets, it also seems to have a lot of transient traffic. We were on vacation so I was not going hunting for airplanes. I even managed to not have the camera to hand as we walked along the water when an MH-60 came heading towards us. I have had some crummy luck when trying to shoot at North Island in the past anyway.
However, when we were up at Cabrillo National Monument, we had a great elevated view of Coronado with the station laid out in the foreground – relatively speaking. Shooting long range is not going to get great shots but the haze was relatively controlled and the light at that time of day was starting to be on your side. I got a few shots of the base as a whole which give you an idea of how it is laid out.
The Botanic Garden in Balboa Park is apparently one of the most popular visitor locations in the city. It isn’t hard to see why since it is densely packed with all manner of vegetation, much of which is beautiful to look at. From tiny plants and delicate orchids to great ferns and palms, there is plenty for the visitor to see. And, there are plenty of visitors! The place has never been quiet whenever I have been there and this visit was certainly no exception.
Not only is it a popular place for people, the local wildlife also seems to like what it has to offer. Birds are flying around at the entrance all the time. I also saw a pretty cool looking caterpillar on a plant just outside the door. I don’t know whether it considered the plant life inside to be tastier and couldn’t get in or whether it was happy munching on what it had. It certainly seemed to be well fed, though.
The garden is not huge so, with everyone squeezed in, it feels pretty busy. Some people are looking at everything, others seem to be just enjoying the overall ambience. For many of the children it seemed to be a chance to see how many of the signs they could ignore by standing on things that weren’t to be stood on or touching things that were not supposed to be touched! I enjoyed the shape and style of the building as much as the plants. It calls out for playing with either a really wide angle lens or a longer lens to compress features. I had to make do with what I had with me.
From where we were staying on Coronado, we could see some boats moored up on the San Diego side of the bay. One of them appeared to have a very large mast. When we took the ferry across to go for dinner, we ended up coming in past this boat. It was a huge vessel with a phenomenal mast. I only had the phone but compiled this pano from a couple of shots from the ferry. There was no way to get the mast in the shot too. I looked the boat up afterwards. It is apparently the largest single-masted sailing boat ever built. (It appears to have been built not far from where I grew up!) It used to be available for charter operations but now seems to be privately owned. It is called M5 and you can see more about it here if you are interested. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirabella_V
There are plenty of historic railways in the UK but most of them are a tourist attraction and operate at limited speed to allow people to experience something from days gone by. However, there is a slightly more unusual railway on the Kent coast. The Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway runs along the Kent coast from Hythe down to Dungeness. It is a narrow gauge railway that, while popular with tourist, does provide a year round service. It is even contracted by the council to take kids to a local school.
The railway has been in operation for decades. In the Second World War they even had an armored train for coastal defense. The service was restored after the war. Most of the locomotives date from before the war and are outstanding scale steam locos. These are a few shots I got of the trains from a crossing in Hythe about ten years ago.
One spot I had never been to while in San Diego was the Cabrillo National Monument up on the northwest end of the bay. The drive to the point takes you through a lot of older naval installations. It also takes you right through the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery. On our way back from the headland, we stopped at the cemetery to take a look around. It sits on both sides of the road and extends a long way in each direction.
Military cemeteries, wherever they are, are always thought provoking places. The uniformity of the layout and the headstones combines with their scale to be quite overwhelming. While many of those buried there died in service, a lot of the headstones were far more recently dated as they were the resting places of veterans of long ago that had more recently died. Many of these also included the spouse of the person.
The location up on the ridge overlooking the water in both directions is a beautiful spot and, as last resting places go, I suspect it ranks pretty highly. We certainly weren’t alone in visiting the cemetery. If you find yourself in that area and have some time, I would recommend going.
