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Published: June 23rd 2017
Balboa Park
Bea Evenson Fountain - dedicated to the woman who formed the "Committee of 100", a group formed to preserved the buildings in the park.Geo: 32.7157, -117.162
While Hamish was busy attending his conference and meetings I took the opportunity to visit one of San Diego's best-known sites - Balboa Park. It is vast, a veritable urban oasis. It was the second oldest city parks in the country and was established in 1868. The Spanish style buildings date back to the 1915-16 Panama-California Expo and the 1935-36 California-Pacific International Expo. A lot of world-class museums are now housed in these structures. Balboa was chosen the park's name in 1910 in hounour of Vaxco Nunez de Balboa, the first European to see the Pacific Ocean.
There are numerous museums within the park and it is impossible to visit them all in a day, so I chose two which I thought I would enjoy: The Model Railroad Museum and the Automotive Museum.
In the Model Railroad Museum, I saw several exhibits of different gauge sizes. They are all built by enthusiasts. The details and scales of the model towns were breath-taking. Apart from the railway, the town scenes were meticulous and humourously done. It was great fun.
The Automotive Museum was also interesting, although not quite how I imagined it to be. There was a special exhibition of Low Riders. They
Balboa Park
Casa de Balboa which now houses the Museum of Photographic Arts and the Model Railroad Museum were beautifully painted cars of the 40s, 50s and 60s. The practice of it is mainly restricted to hte American-Mexican community, who back in Mexico could not afford to change car often, so they spent a lot of effort beautifying the vehicles. It is also a bit of a status symbol and there are competitions and parades.
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