Jan 30, At Balboa Park

Jan 30 Sun Day 13 some cloud, sprinkles of rain & a bit cooler – 59\60 F
We are off to Balboa Park with Paul & Yvonne. We used their GPS to get there to test it out. It worked well. Sheila & I did a free park ranger guided tour for an hour, while Paul & Yvonne explored around on their own. Balboa Park is 1200 acres set aside to be a “park for the people” in 1868. It was named after Velasquez de Balboa, a Spanish explorer who discovered a route for the Panama Canal but who never came anywhere near San Diego. The ranger told some interesting stories about the history of the beautiful Spanish Colonial architecture on site. Built for the 1915 World Exposition, much of it has been reconstructed due to the temporary nature of the original construction which was only built to last 2 or 3 years. He also pointed out various trees & plants around the park, none of which are native to San Diego. The most striking of these were a 250 ft. Eucalyptus, and a Morton Bay Fig tree, both from Australia. The Fig tree was huge, but short--much like a Banyan tree. Its root system is 3x the area of the crown of the tree. The roots from this tree are presently growing under a nearby building. This strange tree also grows roots out from its larger branches, which, if they find their way to the ground, solidify to solid wood to help support the tree.
After the tour, we met up with Paul & Yvonne, & listened to the giant Spreckles Wurlitzer organ for a while. Then it was off to the international houses which are small 1 or 2 room cottages representing about 18 countries of the world. They each had cultural displays & and offered ethnic food samples, (mostly sweets & pastries) with coffee/lemonade etc for a small donation, ($1). While in Irish House. listening to 3 musicians playing Irish music, I was reading about the traditional Irish Christmas dinner. Besides the usual turkey, ham, potatoes, cranberry sauce, they listed “bread sauce”. So the bread sauce that our family always had & I make every Christmas goes back to Irish tradition. Whether it’s also English I don’t know. We also made it to the Timken Museum of Art, (free admission), and after it closed at 4:30 we headed home for supper & hot tubs & TV, stopping enroute for a few groceries.