Get to Know San Diego

No matter what the calendar says, summertime hits San Diego pretty early. You may have to accept some May grey or June gloom, but aside from that the weather gets really nice really early in the year.

Obviously in a place like this, you have a lot of options as the weather warms up. The late spring is a great time to go hiking around San Diego county… not so hot that you feel like you’re going to melt if you’re inland, and all the plants are blooming. It’s the time of year that San Diego has plenty of green. (more…)

Balboa Park
2125 Park Blvd
San Diego, CA 92101

The Japanese Friendship Garden is a beautiful Zen garden in Balboa Park. It features a lovely koi pond, bonsai and more.

There is an admission fee, but the garden is well worth it. You can also become a member if this is a place you’d like to visit regularly.

The koi are quite friendly and used to people. On some days guests are allowed to feed the koi, which is sure to delight children as well as adults. (more…)

Sure, you have a zoo in your city. It’s probably even a rather nice zoo. But odds are it’s nothing like the San Diego Zoo.

The San Diego Zoo covers 100 acres. You cannot see it all in one day, even if you hurry. It’s just that big. It’s home to 800 species, with more than 4000 animals, and more than 700,000 exotic plants.

The San Diego Zoo is one of the few in the world which has successfully bred pandas. You can watch them even when you’re not at the zoo through the panda cam, but you really will want to visit them. Expect a line, but I’ve always found it worthwhile to see these very rare animals. Pandas are not the most active of creatures, but they are beautiful. (more…)

The San Diego Natural History Museum has an impressive range in its collection. As of this writing, there’s the fossil section, a section on the big fire in San Diego in 2003, rocks and minerals and a variety of educational programs.

We watched a movie in their movie theater. The current one is on Vikings, but of course the selection changes regularly, so don’t count on this being current information for long. The theater is large and comfortable - almost stadium seating with how the seats are tiered, but the chairs are not so high backed as in other movie theaters. The entire family enjoyed the movie.

The second floor is where the fossils are, and this was the area we spent the most time on. There’s a cave for the kids to play in, and it was hard to get my daughter to leave that area. (more…)

We took the kids this week to the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center. This was always a favorite when growing up.

We bought tickets both for the Science Center and to see the IMAX film “Dolphins.” The movie was great. Even my son, who is just 15 months old, loved the movie. This was the first time we’d taken the kids to see an IMAX movie, so they were quite impressed. We had to sit in the lower left area since my son is so young, which is a pity since my favorite is the front of the upper area in the middle. (more…)