This is Balboa Park. The park at night was lite up well. This is the tower of CA. Very ornate art work covered the buildings. Has over 15 museums, beautiful gardens, the Zoo and concerts etc.
This is the side of the tower during the day, we did a lot of walking around taking in the buildings, they were pieces of art in themselves.
The camera can not do justice to the park.
Then we went to the water. This is a tall ship. Phil went to look all the ships over and I'm sure he was dreaming about sailing on this one. Maybe some day.
The Star of India. It is a 3 masted bark ship, the oldest iron-hulled merchant ship afloat and built on the Isle of Man, Great Britian and launched in 1863 (just added that because I liked where it was built).
Can you image which rope you are suppose to pull, tie off or untie. Especially in a storm.
A submarine.
Talking about ways to travel. Here is a cheap way I'm sure. You can rent these for 2 people (maybe not Phil and I). This was here job to drive around the tourist areas and advertise the "go car" and smile when someone asks to take her picture.
Another way to travel here was the water taxi.
Another way to travel. I saw this Navy ship leaving the port of the largest West Coast Naval base. Tug boats in front and along side, the black smoke coming out of the stack. All I could hear was momma saying "OK Elmer feed the fish and get it over with". And seeing daddy smiling his quirky smile.
Then this tug boat comes along with a floating fence unfolding to fence in the navy docks after the ships leave.
This the big ship "USS Midway" it served during the Vietnam War. It is know as a city at sea. There are 27 aircraft on here and it can carry 3,200,000 gallons of ship and aviation fuel. It has a 4 acre flight deck. I just say it is BIG.
While looking at the ship Midway I could hear Bob Hope. I went looking for the voice. This is what you see. It brings tears to your eyes just knowing that Bob Hope was such a generous man. He gave his time to entertain our men and women overseas and here in the states. Look at these statutes 's all looking to him. Our men and women wounded, what a great way to salute our hero's in uniform.
This statute is 25' tall and is based on the famous picture from a New York paper. Aug 14, 1945 Edith Shain, a nursing student, ran out into Time Square and was taken into the arms of a strange man in uniform and allowed him to kiss her. A photo was taken and became famous. She acknowledged she was the woman in the 70's.
I can see daddy kissing momma like this when he arrived back on shore. There's was a true love story. I cried then and I cry today. I miss you daddy and momma.
We went from Quartzite, AZ to Blythe, CA then took highway 8 to San Diego. last time we did that we got really side tracked and never made it to San Diego this time we are. Driving along the highway we started seeing more sand and more sand. Kinda like when you come upon the white sand dunes only this was "regular" sand. Yep sand dunes big time with sand dune buggies. I know some kids, and their parents who would have 
Then we see some new kind of architecture. They would cover there sidewalks back then due to the hot weather. So I guess this was the first of the malls.
Got these pictures a little out of order because this was the beginning of the sand.
Then we started into the real mountain climbing. Seen lots of these containers with big signs telling you to watch your radiator and pull offs so you could let your cars cool down.
Then on a side road we saw it. An alien, a little green man. Actually there were alot of alien things on this side road. I think may be some really strange people hung out on this road. We left.
Yep I know we have seen this before, well rocks stacked up similar to this any ways.
This was just kinda funny. Coming up the mountain and you start seeing several windmills in front of you. I think they are neat.
Here the desert land scape is starting to change. We started seeing more green ground cover. Can't really call it grass.
Then TREES. I was excited to see "normal" trees. We are almost there. Almost to San Diego.
These are the trees and bushes of San Diego, Ca. They are so very different from the ones in Kansas and we found them extremely fasinating (to us any ways).
This is called a Bottle Brush tree. If you look close you will see vines coming down from the tree and on the end of those vines you will see a red flower. Shaped like a bottle brush.
This tree reminded us of a magnoila tree. But it isn't and I don't know what kind it is.
Phil and I were walking down the sidewalk to our truck, we had to park it 2 blocks from Loren's house because everyone parks on the street. Anyway something smelled so good and there it was a lemon tree blooming. We know this because a young couple walking to there car from the other way were watching us and we had to explain what we were doing and they laughed and said it was wonderful walking on this block due to the flowering trees.
Here is a tree on the street to Balboa Park. It is so tall. Well I guess you can see that for yourselves.
Sorry about this picture (I took from car while moving in traffic). The limbs just curl and go every where.
WOW wouldn't this make a swell picture to have a family picture done on.
Another big tree with a lady statute holding Birds of Paradise flowers in her hand. In front of Balboa Park.
Just a pretty flowered tree at the historic Mission San Juan Capistrano.
Another flowered tree on in Harbor Park.
This is a live tree. Yep a live tree.
See it has flowers on it. If there are a lot of bunches of leaves on it we didn't see the flowers. No leaves then we would see the flowers.
Just another funny growing tree in a front yard. We loved the yards along the coast line. They all had wonderfully manicured lawns. But they were all real close together.
Bird of Paradise bushes. They were even in the middle of the streets. They were beautiful and look like birds.
This is a Dragon Tree at the Hotel Del Coronado on Coronado island. It is native to the Canary Islands and was planted here prior to the turn of the century. It was used as a back drop for Marilyn Monroe when her movie 'Some Like It Hot' was filmed here in 1958.
Do you want to guess as to why these holes are in this tree? Yes I know you probably guessed it. Wood Peckers. Right. the amazing thing is that it was just riddled with the holes. This was also at the Mission of San Juan.
This is the Slab City welcome sign. It was a Marine training base Ft Dunlap. It is a WWII guard shack. Phil had been talking to some travelers in Quartzsite and they said they were going to go stay at Slab City for a few days. The only thing I knew about it was what I saw on TV about a month ago. It told about a family of 5 , the father had lost his job and no money coming in so they moved out to slab city in a small RV where they had to go to town to get water, had no electricity, no water. and no sewer. They formed a neighborhood with the other people living there. I thought that it looked bad and not healthy for children. I thought it was terrible that we here in the US had to live like that. 
This group of slab city dwellers have built onto there small RV. 
I can't really tell you about this other than they also did this to a car that was on a trailer. Why I don't know other than they had nothing better to do with their time or trash. Did they drive this? I don't know.
This is a slab where army buildings once stood. The government came in and bulldozed all the buildings and left only the slabs all over this once army base. An old school bus can make a good home I guess.
This neighborhood established a cafe here on a slab. There were a lot of RV's around just parked where ever. There is no electric, no water and no sewer. I just cannot imagine. You would see people camped in tents, under tarps, under trees, in old buses, trucks and then down the trail a ways you would see $100,000.00 motor home with solar panels on top. Trash blowing every where catching onto bushes. One motor home had just pulled in and they were out with trash bags picking up trash around there little area They said it made them feel like they helped a little.
There was a sign on this trailer saying "library" and sure enough we looked in the windows and saw rows of books. I don't know who they checked books out to or how they kept track of them. But it was kinda nice to see. I got the feeling that each group of trailers was a family type thing.. They would have rocks scattered around dividing off the boundaries.
This is that old school bus or RV saw from a different direction. You would think no one lived there but I had a feeling that someone did. 
This was a surprise to me. I knew we were going to see Salvation Mountain the painted mountain, but, I didn't know this was what we were going to see. It is 50' high and 150' wide. Made totally of adobe clay and painted with donated paint. Lenard started painting it in 1986 (what I could find any way ) and lived in a 1939 old fire truck on site with no electricity or water He worked faithfully on it with others who wanted to help. The painter passed away just 6 weeks ago. Phil liked that UPS picked up here also.
You can see that some one will have to finish the right side of it and I am sure some one will pick up where he left off. There are vehicles setting 
Just seeing the devotion he had for this his Salvation Mountain. He had dementia for several years and still continued on with this project.
We came driving down this asphalt road sometimes covered with sand that had blown over it during the last couple of days. Came upon these big boulders on both sides of the road and I quickly thought of the cowboys movies that I had seen when they were boxed in a canyon. Hence the roads name "Box Canyon". It w a s awesome.
And, of course, you know me and my pictures of the rocks. Look at the veins in this boulder of a mountain. I would have walked over to it but I am afraid of snakes. (And they caution all the time of the snakes).
Here the boulders are standing up right like some one decided to change up the scenery.
And then again a change of smooth mountains. Well in this Box Canyon we did have an exit and escaped.
