Gardens in Balboa Park

Tuesday Marty and I went back to Balboa Park.  This time no museums, we were there for the gardens. I took 74 pictures.  So much beauty.  I have posted 15 for your viewing pleasure.  Do click to enlarge them, the details need to be bigger.   Our first garden I can’t find listed on the website.  It is part of the art museum and just not listed.  It is green grass, a pool, and sculpture.

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This is at one of the entrances.  

This park blog gives information about this little garden.

Across the street is the Alcazar Garden.  They were replanting some of the beds and the rich smell of the earth was wonderful. 

  

The top picture shows the garden as you enter.  The bed to the left is being replanted.  The tree is the background is amazing.  The bottom picture shows Marty searching for a sign to tell us what this tree is.  No sign.  It also shows how huge this tree is.  Yes tree, singular. 

                                                     

The tile work is gorgeous in this garden.  The flowers are snapdragons.  Yes, the end of October, snapdragons.

This is the sign at the entrance of the Zoro Garden.  It is a butterfly garden.  We did not have much luck finding butterflies.  We saw 3 or 4.  And the little devils are really hard to spot in the flowers.  My pictures are not worth posting.  Maybe next time we will have better luck.

                                                  

This fountain is in front of a couple of the museums.  I thought it and the sky made a great picture.

We have arrived at the Cactus Garden.  None of the plants had signs to identify them.  They had a sun bleached sign that showed shapes and gave names at the entrance.  It was too faint to photograph and take with us.  So I have great pictures and no idea what we are looking at.

Weird and strange and wonderful at the same time.

                                        

When I saw this, all I could think of was Cowboy movies from the 1950’s. 

And now we enter the Rose Garden, just a couple of steps from the cactus.

You are looking at the Gazebo that is below us.  Also note how throughout the garden they have white roses to contrast with the colored roses.

Who is that cute fellow?

                                    

This rose was magnificent!  Pure white, with the touch of pink inside.  Loved it.

You have to click on this one to read the name.   The cook in me had to have a picture of this rose.

The aroma as we walked through this garden was heavenly.  Sometimes very strong, other times a faint smell floating by.  I can not imagine this garden at its peak in the early summer.  It was full of blooming roses and buds yesterday.

There are more gardens for us to see next week.

Balboa Park Part 2

Today I have pictures from the Air and Space Museum, some pictures of buildings, and the Botanical Building.  Also more pictures from the Automotive Museum. 

The cars were fabulous, as were the motor cycles.  Some of the vehicles had been restored to glossy new.  Others looked as if they had just found them after they were stuck in a mud pile for 75 years.  Interestingly, I tend to like the non restored better.  Maybe the history was talking to me.

Indian, gorgeous motorcycles.  

This is a military motorcycle from WWII.

This is a very early car.  You can see Marty and me in the mirror.  That will give you an idea of how large this car is.  Many of the early cars had 16 cylinders.

                                                     

                                           

The Apollo 9 space capsule.  It looks way shinier than it is.  Most of the paint is burned off, and the bottom where the heat shield is was black.

 

This is the killing machine, the Drone.

 

Notice that these are a Navy jet fighter and a Navy helicopter.  San Diego is a Navy town, no Air Force exhibit here.

This is a replica of a German WWI plane. Among the serious stuff, a little humor.  In 1978 the museum burned and they lost everything.  They have recreated the planes they lost.  Other planes obtained since then are original.

They didn’t tell us who Bunnie was.

Several of the museums.  The architecture is stunning.

                                                    

The Botanical Building.  I was expecting a glass building.  This is just slats and is open air.

This is the view with the Botanical Building at your back.  The Lily Pond.  The smell was awful yesterday.  They had seeded and sodded around the pond.  We think they used fairly fresh manure to help the grass along.

Inside a true jungle.  There were orchids, ferns, banana plants, Australian Tree Ferns that go to the ceiling.

This will give you a sense of scale.  Marty is close to 6 feet tall.  You can’t even see the ceiling here.

Few plants were identified.  So don’t know what this is other than lovely.

                                                                     

We loved the swirl of these plants.

Another beauty with no identification.

Next week we hope to go back and visit other museums.  There are so many gardens for us to visit also.  Part of these visits are just because we love gardens and museums.  But we are previewing for when Little Brother and wife Ann come Thanksgiving.  We need to know what is out there for them to see.  Of course I will send them links to Balboa Park and other sites in the area.  They may see something we hadn’t even thought of.

Hope you enjoyed this.  We certainly enjoyed our day out Tuesday.

Balboa Park Part 1

Today we had nice weather.  You could stand to be outside.  So Marty and I went to Balboa Park.  On each Tuesday certain museums are free for residents.  The parking is always free, and most of the gardens are free.  It is a gorgeous park: the plantings, buildings, walkways.  We spent several hours looking at three museums and the Botanical Garden.

The Hall of Champions, that took about 5 minutes.  We are not sports fans, unless it is University of Kentucky basketball.

The Automotive museum was great.  There is a special exhibit (that we had to pay a whopping $2.00 per person) on Steampunk.  The docent said this was an art form that makes you use your imagination.  How would the Victorians have made a plane, a ray gun, a time machine? Artists made some wonderful clothes, vehicles, guns.  I, as usual, have way too many pictures.  Be sure to click on them to enlarge them.  The detail on some of these things is just wonderful.

A warrior’s face mask.

I love this hat.  The huge magnifying light and the other gadgets.  Makes me want to go exploring.

 

This vehicle was huge, maybe 15 feet long. It is a time machine/killing plow.  The next picture is a note from the artist.

                                                     

The lights to spotlight exhibits make for a poor picture.  I love the last line of this.

Isn’t this beautiful?  I loved this motorcycle.  Check out the horn.

This is for our son Erik.  Be sure to read this poster.  Batman rules.

                                                        

                                                                

Can you say Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?  The museum took one of their old cars and added the wings. 

Ray guns

This is a super sized bicycle for two.  The front two wheels are controlled by the person in the first seat.  The back wheels are controlled by the person in the next little seat.  The back seat is for passengers.

This is just what is says, the service craft for a dirigible. On the left side of the information stand is a booklet telling you how to operate the craft.

The above is just a portion of what we saw today.  This was so much fun, and really impressive with the art/technology.  I don’t know if this was a traveling exhibit or just local.  If it does comes to your area, do go see it. 

Tomorrow or the next day I will show some of the other things we saw today.  So stay tuned.