Old Town San Diego

In San Diego one of the first things we did was to take the trolley over to Old Town State Historical Park. A strange mixture of old historical buildings and displays and commercial uses (restaurants, shops). A pretty fun place to get the feel of how it might have been way back when.

Vintage metal signs were everywhere, this signal bell one was pretty cool.

The rock shop was really cool, these plates were out of some stone that I didn't think to write down and have of course forgotten, but they were just glowing in the sun.

I love old bells, and I was glad to see this one down on my level so I could take a close-up photo of it.
Shoot, the kaleidscope store was closed. But this one was permanently outside. You look in the scope and slowly turn the bowl of flowers, cool!

Isn't this a nice planter? Love the shape, the mosaic work, the stone work, and oh yeah, the plants!

I just love how the passageways looked, so colorful.
I almost bought this metal corazon (heart) but got distracted and then forgot to go back :(

A whole store of hot sauce! Which was interesting, but no purchases were made as we have a lot at home already. And one with all ceramic tiles which were cool, but we didn't buy any because no one wanted to haul them around.

This courtyard was really beautiful with some great plantings and many shady trees. There was traditional folklorico dancing with the swirling skirts and stomping heels and whirling machetes and dancing around sombreros. Pretty fun, I didn't take pictures, just enjoyed it.

Hibiscus! Happy as can be and not in Hawaii. It really is a lot warmer a whole lot more reliably in San Diego. Amazing what 500 miles difference north to south does...

They're fixing a lot of the historical buildings in OldTown and are making adobe bricks in the traditional way to use in the repairs. It looked like it was set up so that visitors could help, but it was all closed up when we were there.

More on San Diego tomorrow...