Are you brave enough to visit the Whaley House on Friday the 13th?

Okay scaredy cats – It may be Friday the 13th, but that doesn’t mean you need to hide out at home. Grab your lucky four-leaf clover and check out our list of 5 to try on Friday the 13th in San Diego:

La Jolla Gravity Hill – Bring your car to this hidden San Diego landmark and disprove Newton’s laws of gravity.  Story goes that if you drive to West Muirlands in La Jolla (between Fay and Nautilus St.) and line up your right rear tire with the telephone pole on the side of the street with the fairway while your car is in neutral it will actually roll uphill.

Note: Please try this with a friend who is able to witness and take photos for you. Do not ”ghost ride the whip” to see if this is working. If dozens of cars start rolling backwards down the hill I don’t want to be held accountable.

The Whaley House – One of America’s most haunted houses, the Whaley House is a San Diego beacon for paranormal activity. Reports of ghostly figures, strange occurrences and even ghost dogs make up potential spooks that roam the grounds. Special Friday the 13th tours are offered from 5 p.m. to midnight tonight complete with oil lamps, scary stories and more.

Escondido Muffler Man – If you happen to be driving along and see a mile-high man while driving in Escondido don’t be afraid – unless he happens to be chasing your car. San Diego is home to one of 17 Muffler Men scattered around the state, made of fiberclass and standing 18 to 25 feet tall.

Hotel del Coronado – Are you brave enough to spend an entire night in a haunted hotel room? The Hotel del Coronado’s room #3327 is reportedly haunted by a past guest who may be overstaying her welcome in a ghostly form.

Haunted San Diego Tours – Haunted San Diego Tours brings you to the most haunted places in San Diego by the bus-full. Learn about San Diego’s spooky history during this interactive tour that promises to prove ghosts exist as they tour through the county’s oldest graveyard and other hair-raising attractions.

Tags: hotel del, unique tour, whaley house

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Veterans Day falls on November 11, the anniversary of the Armistice of World War I — not a great battle but an achievement of peace.  Each year, San Diego honors United States veterans with the San Diego County Veterans Day Parade taking place downtown on Pacific Highway beginning at 11:00 A.M.  Everyone is invited to come and see one of San Diego’s most spectacular parades.

After the parade, you can visit the U.S.S. Midway Museum and watch as its newest addition — a restored World War II Corsair fighter plane — is lifted onto the fight deck.  Veterans will receive free admission to the museum and $1 from every ticket sold that day will be donated to the Veterans Village of San Diego.

While you’re there, check out the collection of military memorials along the bay, between the U.S.S. Midway and Seaport Village.

Building on the spirit of the occasion, LEGOLAND California has recreated the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in miniature.  The mini-memorial is situated in the park’s  Miniland, between the mini Lincoln Memorial and the mini Washington Memorial, just like the real thing in Washington, D.C.

Also in honor of Veterans Day, Old Town Trolley Tours of San Diego will treat all veterans — active duty, retired, and honorably discharged — to an entertaining and enlightening city sightseeing tour on Wednesday, November 11.  Just bring your valid ID card showing active duty or retirement, or a DD214 (proof of release from the military), to any Old Town Trolley booth for your complimentary boarding pass.

And just so you know, the world-famous San Diego Zoo offers free admission all year round to active duty military personnel (U.S. and foreign) with valid military ID. Spouses and dependents receive 10% discount on the Best Value Admission, which includes bus tour and Skyfari aerial tram.

Here’s to making a happy Veterans Day happen in San Diego!

Tags: free, holiday, legoland, military, sightseeing, tour, zoo

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Vizit Tours

For those of you that want to get out and see San Diego without having to worry about navigating the city streets, Vizit Tours offers four new sightseeing opportunities aboard a vintage Double Decker open top bus. 

Every tour is narrated by a local tour guide that will tell you the history, facts and insider tips about each location throughout the tour. You can even hop-on or -off at any stop and get back on at a later time to complete the tour.  Busses run every hour from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. Or, you can catch the one-hour nighttime tour at 6 p.m. 

Tour highlights and stops include:

• The Balboa Park Loop: Seaport Village, Horton Plaza mall, Gaslamp Quarter, Balboa Park, San Diego Zoo.
• The Old Town and Harbor Loop: Horton Plaza mall, Little Italy, Old Town, Maritime Museum/USS Midway Museum.
• The La Jolla and Beaches Loop: Old Town, SeaWorld, Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach, Belmont Park, La Jolla. **This is the ONLY regularly scheduled sightseeing tour in San Diego that will take you to these beaches.**
• The Night Loop: Seaport Village, San Diego Bay, Little Italy, Gaslamp Quarter. This one-hour tour is perfect for a date or a fun outing with friends and family; adult beverages welcome so B.Y.O.D. (bring your own drinks).

A couple of weeks ago, I tried out and La Jolla Loop and had a great time! The views of La Jolla are truly breathtaking and I highly recommend an afternoon tour so you can see the ocean glisten in the sun. (I know that sounds corny but it is sooo pretty!)

Prices: Tickets are good for two days and cost $15 per person, per loop or $35 per person for all four loops.

Note: For those of you that want gorgeous views and prime photo opps., I recommend sitting on the top level.  (The views are unbeatable.) But, for those that are interested in learning about the history, facts and insider tips, I recommend sitting inside on the bottom level. (Due to the open top up there, it’s difficult to hear the tour guide on over the wind.)

Tags: balboa park, Gaslamp Quarter, la jolla, little italy, mission beach, ocean beach, old town, pacific beach, san diego bay, seaport village, seaworld, zoo

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Popcorn Chicken is one of the 30 new Urban Trees on San Diego Bay.

My perennial favorite public art project is blooming again along the shores of San Diego Bay.  Each year since 2003, the Port of San Diego has commissioned artists to dream up fantastic, fanciful sculptures and install their “urban tree” on our waterfront. 

Over the years, the Urban Trees project has produced works of art that range from literal to surreal to kinetic to musical to just plain silly.

What does Urban Trees version 6 have to offer?  

Well, the trees are installed, the Port has posted a handy google map to guide you and they are definitely worth a leisurely stroll along the Bay to check them out. 

Paper Airplanes are pretty, no?

Pop art crops up in “Popcorn Chicken” a 10′ tall red and white striped popcorn box filled with, you guessed it, chickens. 

It’s graceful and beautiful but it also reminds me of being a kid and long lazy afternoons lost in imagination. 

A little whimsy – it makes me smile!

Tags: art, free, public art, san diego bay, sculpture

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If you have spent any time driving near the Marine Corps Air Station on Miramar Road, you probably have driven past a collection of vintage military aircraft.  That collection is the pride of the Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum, the only museum dedicated to Marine Corps aviation.

Visitor Services Squadron with a restored TMB 3-E

I joined a group of Visitor Services volunteers on the trip up to Miramar to tour the museum and get a little history on the landmarks – a lot of history, actually.  With some notice to the museum you can request a tour from a docent, and we scored one of their major docents — a Sergeant Major docent, in fact.  Sergeant Major Mike Zacker, USMC (Retired), was there to take us through nearly one hundred years of Marine Corps aviation.  He gave an entertaining tour filled with military zeal and plenty of harrowing personal accounts, as one would expect from a four-decade veteran.

Aside from the impressive collection of aircraft and service vehicles, the exhibits housed within the museum building were extensive, with military artifacts dating back to 1918.  The stuff here is neat enough on its own, but listen to old uncle Alex: get one of the docents to show you around! They’re all retired military of some ilk, and it’ll be your very own interactive History Channel — with no commercials.

The newest addition to the collection: the T-34B “Mentor”

This attraction is about 20-30 minutes from downtown, and it’s a treasure for San Diego’s military presence, which includes the families who come to town to see their sons and daughters graduated, promoted or deployed.  Folks in uniform as well as their families are welcomed with open arms (the kind on your body, not the shooting kind).

Museum entry and docent-led tours are free but donations are accepted.  All donations are applied toward the planned construction of the new, world-class Marine Corps Aviation Museum.  When completed, the museum will house extensive, permanent aviation exhibits as well as an on-site restoration facility.  Hopefully, I’ll get to let you know when it’s done.

This weekend, September 5 & 6, will be your opportunity to climb inside the cockpits of four fighter jets on display during Open Cockpit Days!

Tags: free, military, museum, things to do, what to do

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The Monument

On August 15 and 16, the National Park Service, in an effort to get across to us that our national parks are awesome, offered free admission into more than 100 national parks across the nation, and it just so happens that we have one right here in San Diego.

Cabrillo National Monument sits above the Point Loma shore where it is generally agreed Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, leading the first European expedition to explore what is now the west coast of the United States, landed his flagship the San Salvador in 1542.  (Cabrillo must have known he was in the right place when he climbed to the top to find this statue.)

It was his expedition that produced the first written description of the west coast of North America.  It would be another sixty years before anybody else would pay any attention to the region and, in 1913, President Woodrow Wilson would commemorate Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo with the national monument we all know and love today.

From this elevated spot in Point Loma, you can see San Diego — all of San Diego — on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other.  And what’s that landmass just to the south?  Why it’s Tijuana, Mexico!  How many national parks can show you a bay, an ocean, and a foreign country?  Take that, Yellowstone!

It is easy to stand on this spot and imagine yourself in Cabrillo’s shoes –- the ocean at your back, looking over that big bay to the land beyond, rich with mountains, coastal plains and promise.  Now imagine you’re wearing thigh-high boots and poofy shorts.  That’s what it is to be an explorer, near as I can figure.

The Intertidal Area

Much more than a monument, here you can:

• EXPLORE the tidepools and their unique ecosystem.
• HIKE the two-mile Bayside Trail.
• VISIT the historic Old Point Loma Lighthouse.
• CHECK OUT the bookstore.
• SEE the “Age of Exploration” exhibit in the visitor center.
• LISTEN to Park Ranger talks on Point Loma’s military history.

ATTENTION, KIDS! You can earn your Junior Ranger badge from Cabrillo National Monument.  Just ask for a Junior Ranger activity at the visitor center.  After you have completed the program in the park, you will receive the Park Ranger badge and oath from an actual Park Ranger or volunteer.  If that’s not cool, I don’t wanna know what cool is!

Cabrillo National Monument is open every day of the year, from 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.  Regular entrance fees are $5 per vehicle, and $3 per pedestrian, bicyclist or motorcyclist.

Tags: cabrillo national monument, kids, national park, outdoors, things to do, what to do

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That’s what Julie Newmar’s Catwoman said to Burgess Meredith’s Penguin in the uber-kitschy film version of the caped crusader – 1966’s Batman.  And, to paraphrase the sidekick of all sidekicks, “Holy Pen & Ink, Batman. It’s Comic-Con.”

In celebration of this week’s pop culture extravaganza and because I’ve always thought submarines were the craziest super-villain rides around, I’ve got the down-low on getting aboard two really hot Cold War-era subs at the Maritime Museum. 

Thar she blows, The Dolphin.

First off, the newest edition to their collection the USS Dolphin. Just debuted at the museum in May, this sub served from 1968 to 2006 as a US Navy research vessel testing deep sea communications and other things we still can’t talk about because they’re still classified. Sailors on this ship sent the first ever underwater email and she held the record for the deepest dive for decades.

The Russians only gave them numbers, not names.

The Dolphin’s counterpart at the museum – though not on the high seas (she’s too tough for the Dolphin) – is the B-39 Russian Attack Submarine.  Launched in the early 1970’s, she patrolled the seas looking for…well, us. Throughout the cold war, this exact kind of sub is exactly what kept US sailors, many of them based out of San Diego, on high alert.  The craziest thing about this sub is that she’s totally 70’s with a completely wood paneled interior. Wood panelling. Underwater. Yup.

More photos, including torpedos and the aforementioned wood panelling, after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: maritime museum, military, san diego bay, submarine

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"Thanks for the memories . . ."

Earlier today, I ran across a dedication ceremony for the newest memorial to be installed downtown at Tuna Harbor Park on the bay, just south of the USS Midway Museum.  (Yeah, I didn’t know it was called Tuna Harbor Park, either.)  Over 100 people including yours truly, along with Port Authority officials, veterans, a Marine Corps band, and even a Navy admiral, were there to pay tribute to the newest inductee into the collection of military memorials: Honorary Veteran, Bob Hope.

The new memorial, “A National Salute to Bob Hope and the Military,” is the crowning piece in the Port of San Diego Public Art program’s Greatest Generation Collection, which is a series of art pieces and memorials honoring people, events and military heritage from World War II to present day.  Bob Hope’s presence in the collection is fitting since that is just about the same span of time that he spent entertaining U.S. troops overseas.

The Greatest Generation Collection has several other powerful pieces strewn about the area, including the Aircraft Carrier Memorial, the popular giant sculpture “Unconditional Surrender,” which recreates the famous Life Magazine photograph from 1945 of a sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square, and the bronze piece that gets me the most, “Homecoming.”  That’s the one that shows a sailor reuniting with his wife and child after a long deployment.  You don’t have to have served to understand the emotion behind that one.

"Unconditional Surrender"

With all the solemnity and emotion among the military monuments, they could sure use a visit from Bob Hope’s USO road show, which is what the new memorial depicts.  It’s actually comprised of 16 bronze statues — Bob “broadcasting from San Diego” Hope eternally entertaining 15 servicemen and women representing every branch of the military during every war since World War II.  The memorial says much by itself, but you can pick up a brochure about it, and the entire collection, from the Port of San Diego.

You’ll probably be down near Tuna Harbor Park at some point — visiting the USS Midway Museum or perhaps walking from Seaport Village to the Coronado Ferry — so odds are you’ll run into these pieces from the Greatest Generation Collection, as well as some other military heritage memorials.   Drop in on Bob’s show while you’re there and thank him for the memories.  (No, I never served.  I just have always liked Bob Hope.  If the Port of San Diego ever dedicates a Dorothy Lamour memorial, you know I’ll be there.)

"This is Bob 'San Diego' Hope. You all know San Diego, don't you? That's the southernmost town in Los Angeles!"

Tags: art, downtown, free, military, outdoors, san diego bay

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That's a military helicopter flying a car over San Diego Bay. Crucial plot point.

While you won’t see stunts like that everyday, you can inject a little high octane excitement into your vacation.  Here’s how:

• Rent a Go Car Tour around town.  Sharing the road in a little, yellow motorized scooter will give you a perspective on how it must feel to face down a giant robot/vehicle. Plus, they look kinda like Bumblebee.
• Call Corporate Helicopter tours to schedule a private chopper tour and get a Decepticons-eye-view of the downtown skyline and San Diego Bay. 
• Younger kids can learn the rules of the road and bone up for those high-speed chases at Legoland’s Fun Town Driving School. 
• Visit the San Diego Automotive Museum and imagine what Autobots of the past might have looked like. Is that vintage truck Optimus Prime’s grandfather?
• Or, see those classic cars in action each Thursday during the La Mesa’s weekly Back in Time rally or on Friday’s during Escondido’s Cruisin’ Grand events.
• If you just have to get behind the wheel yourself, sign up for San Diego Prestige’s Supercar Tour- a luxury car road rally through the gorgeous, winding San Diego back country.

Tags: classic car, film, legoland, san diego bay

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Hop aboard the Pilot during Sailor Days!

Did you ever want to be a sailor?

Well, beginning July 15, you’ll get your chance because Wednesdays are Sailor Days this summer at the Maritime Museum on San Diego Bay. 

Every Wednesday through August 26, the historic Star of India and all the other ships in the museum’s collection will offer hands-on activities designed to give you a taste of the sailing life.

Adults and kids can make rope for sailing, move cargo around the decks, raise and lower the huge sails, tie sailor’s knots, climb through a steam engine and much more.

Kids are also invited to take part in a scavenger hunt through the ships, searching for fun historic maritime facts and then choosing a prize from the museum’s treasure chest.

The best part?  Sailor Days activities are included with regular museum admission – $14 for adults and $8 for kids. 

Plus, when you book tickets online in advance and choose the Discovery package, you’ll get a free one-hour historic boat cruise on San Diego Bay aboard the Pilot. (You also have the option to purchase tickets at the door and add the boat tour for $3.)

Tags: deals, downtown, maritime museum, san diego bay, summer

(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

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