Syttende Mai (17th May) - Norwegian Constitution Day in San Diego

Every year on the Sunday closest to May 17th the Norwegians of San Diego get together in Balboa Park to celebrate Constitution Day, more commonly known as Syttende Mai, or simply the 17th of May. This national holiday of Norway celebrates the signing of the Norwegian Constitution on 17 May 1814. The celebration has been held in the International Houses area of the Park for many years now, and it's always been one of my favorites to attend.


The festivities start with a big parade.

Everyone got lined up, but they had to wait while a TV personality from Norway did her thing. The interviews and parade were being televised in Norway this year.

Finally the parade was under way. It went on for quite a while.

Time for a snack. The House of Norway was serving vafler, waffles with jam and sour cream. The line was long, but it was worth the wait.

The San Diego Norwegian Men's Choir performing.

Watching the festivities.

Before I left I stopped in to a few of the other houses. The House of Ireland was serving Irish Whiskey Bread, Irish Soda Bread and Colcannon, and the House of Poland had some grilled Polish sausage that they served on a piece of bread with a slice of pickle.  Lots of good food to sample today.


Click here to see more images from the Norwegian Constitution Day celebration in Balboa Park, San Diego.
    

Night Shooting in Balboa Park - May 12, 2010

A few of us got together for an evening of photography in Balboa Park on Thursday. It was a pretty nice night to be walking around, mild temps and only a little wind.

Anyone who's been to Balboa Park will have noticed by now that all five of the shots above were taken from about the same place. We did get some walking in, so now we'll move on a bit.

It appears that someone has vandalized (maybe "molested" is the better word) El Cid's horse. This actually led to a short but amusing conversation that went something like:


LaRee: "Shouldn't they be blue?"
Frank: "Well, this is San Diego, it never really gets that cold."

We finished up over by the Old Globe theater complex.

The four of us had a nice time walking around talking and taking pictures.


Click here to see more images from Thursday night in Balboa Park, San Diego, including a black & white version of El Cid that looks a lot more normal.
  

Sunday Drive - San Diego Backcountry - May 9, 2010

Heather and I were joined by our friends Rae and Robert on Sunday, May 9th for a drive in the local mountains. We started out from the little community of Pine Valley, located in the backcountry of eastern San Diego County, and drove up a little road called Pine Creek Road. The road starts out from Old US 80 as a narrow 2 lanes, and after a bit it enters the Cleveland National Forest and becomes a barely paved one-lane forest service road as it follows the path of Pine Creek upwards into the Laguna Mountains.  There are lots of old oak trees along the way.

You can stay on pavement all way to Sunrise Highway, but we took a detour along Deer Park Road, a sort-of graded dirt track that continues north. After a ways it ends, and you have to turn back the way you came, but not before you come across some interesting old artifacts.

This appears to be the remains of an old arrastra, which was likely used to crush quartz ore in order to extract gold.

After we got back to Pine Creek Road we continued up over a ridge line and into the Laguna Mountains Recreation Area, which still shows the scars of the massive forest fire from 2003. This first shot is looking back towards Pine Creek, which was spared from the fire.

This area used to be heavily covered in pine trees. Not much left now, but the lower vegetation does seem to be coming back.

Once we hit Sunrise Highway we made a few stops to check out the views down towards Anza Borrego. The wind was quite strong, and there was a lot of haze, so no good pictures of the view. We did manage to find the remains of the what appears to be the old Mt. Laguna Air Force Station. This was apparently a defense early warning site that operated from about 1952 to 1981, when the site was taken over by the FAA for use as a radar installation.

They seemed to take the security quite seriously. We didn't go up to the site itself. The views down to the desert from where were parked were pretty spectacular though, but the wind was howling and it was too hazy/dusty down below to get a good picture.

On our way back down we stopped briefly at the Laguna Mountain Lodge for a cold drink, then continued down Sunrise Highway and back to Old US 80 and eventually I-8 and home. It was a perfect day for a Sunday drive in the mountains.


Click here to see more from our Sunday drive.
  

San Diego Zoo - SD-DSLR May Group Shoot

The San Diego DSLR Photography Group's monthly Group Shoot for May was held at the San Diego Zoo on Saturday, May 8th. I think many of us spent more time socializing than we did shooting, but that's probably the best part about the group. A few of us spent the whole morning just walking, talking, and occasionally taking a picture of something, including this one of some of us, that I shot "from the hip" (more or less).

It was one of the few days in the year when the Orchid House is open to the public.

We did manage to get a few animal pictures as well. The meerkats are some of my favorites, and we spent a fair amount of time watching them.

Rae checked out the new interactive part of the Polar Bear exhibit.

Click here for more images from my morning at the Zoo on Saturday, May 8, 2010.


Click here for the San Diego DSLR Photo Group to see what the others in group have posted.
  

From Poles to Trolls - And Some Other Things As Well - Balboa Park Sunday May 2

It was the House of Poland's turn to host the Lawn Program at the International Houses in Balboa Park on Sunday May 2nd. I managed to get a few shots of the folk dancers.

After watching the dancing for a bit I stopped in to the House of Norway to see what sort of tasty snacks the Vikings were offering. This time it was little waffle-like things with some berry preserves and cream. I'm sure they have an actual name, and I'm equally sure I have no idea what it is. In any event, they were good.

They also have a cool collection of trolls sitting on a table just waiting to be photographed.

I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the Park. Along the way I met an aspiring young portrait photographer. We talked for a bit, and I let her take my photo for her class project. It was nice to see a young person shooting slide film, especially with an old totally manual camera.

Later I stopped and listened to Mitch, the didgeridoo player who is generally in the Park on weekends.

Click here to see more images from Sunday, May 2, 2010 in Balboa Park.

  

Little Italy & Balboa Park - Sightseeing Around San Diego

Today was a perfect day to wander around San Diego. I started out in Little Italy, with a visit to the Saturday Farmer's Market, the camera shop, and some lunch. There were a lot of people out and about, which is pretty normal for a Saturday in Little Italy.

I found this great looking little Vespa parked in front of one of the restaurants.

There is a lot of color in Little Italy.

Some of it is perhaps a little gaudy . . .  okay, so I'm trying to be nice here.

After lunch (which was nothing special, so I won't mention where I ate this time), I made a quick stop in the church on my way to my favorite gelato place.

Pappalecco, on the corner of State and Cedar, has great gelato and great atmosphere. They make really good espresso too.

From Little Italy I drove over to Balboa Park.  It was the second to the last day of Art Alive, an annual event where the San Diego Museum of Art is filled with floral arrangements, many of which mimic the artworks.

As you can see from this next shot, and several of the ones above, I spent some quality time with my fisheye lens today. There's just something about a 180-degree diagonal field of view that opens up a bunch of possibilities.

All in all it was a pretty nice day to outside in San Diego. These last 2 are from the International Cottages area. The late afternoon light in Balboa Park is always nice.

Click here to see more images from today.