Blog Archives
Out & About San Diego #8 — San Diego: A train rider’s paradise
#8
San Diego: A train rider’s paradise
San Diego is not a hotbed of rail activity, making train watching a hit or miss adventure. However, if you are looking to ride the rails, there’s no better place than San Diego.
Amtrak will get you from downtown San Diego to Los Angeles with a few stops along the way.
The Coaster will get you from downtown San Diego to Oceanside. From there you can take Metrolink to Los Angeles or the Sprinter east to Escondido.
Then there is the San Diego Trolley, or light rail system that has been going strong for 31 years. In August 2011, the Trolley, run by the Metropolitan Transit System, added a vintage PCC streetcar that was built in 1949:
During World War II, streetcar service increased dramatically in cities throughout North America. As soon as the war ended, though, streetcar service began to decline in favor of rubber-wheeled busses which were more maneuverable and required less maintenance. San Diego was the first major city to switch over completely from streetcars to busses, with the last streetcar running in April 1949.
PCC #529 originally operated in San Francisco. It was bought by San Diego Vintage Trolley (a non-profit subsidiary of the Metropolitan Transit System) from a collector in South Lake Tahoe, California. Although it was in poor condition, dozens of volunteers spent more than 10,000 hours over six years restoring it to operating condition, and it made its first run on the downtown loop on August 18, 2011.
San Diego Vintage Trolley has five more streetcars purchased at the same time and which will be renovated for use in San Diego. Two were also used in San Francisco, while the other three were used in New Jersey and southeast Pennsylvania.
Take a ride on PCC #529 on the downtown Silver Line loop with stops at the Gaslamp Quarter, Petco Park, Seaport Village, the harbor, East Village, San Diego Convention Center, America Plaza, the Civic Center, and San Diego City College.
The Silver Line Vintage Trolley takes about 25 minutes to travel the full loop, and travel is in a clockwise direction only, just in case you need to make it somewhere. The fare is just $2, $1 for seniors and disabled. Children five and under ride free. You must have exact change. Although the PCC #529 can accomodate wheelchairs, only one wheelchair can be handled at a time.
The Silver Line operates on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. First departure on Tuesdays and Thursdays is from the 12th & Imperial Transit Center at 9:52 a.m. Last run departs at 1:52 p.m. On Saturdays and Sundays, first run departs from the 12th & Imperial Transit Center at 10:52 am with the last run departing at 3:22 p.m.
If you are interested in helping preserve the history of the San Diego streetcar system or helping with restoration, join the San Diego Electric Railway Association (SDERA). SDERA operates the National City Depot at 922 W. 23rd Street in National City. The historic Santa Fe railroad station has a museum, railroad cars, a large model railroad, and a gift shop. The National City Depot is open Thursday to Sunday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Monthly meetings of SDERA are held at the National City Depot on the second Saturday of the month at 7:30 p.m.
Out & About San Diego — #7: San Diego: A bird-lover’s paradise
#7
San Diego: A bird-lover’s paradise
San Diego County lays claim to a bird-lover’s paradise because there have been more species of birds seen in the County than in any other county in the nation. The current tally is 505 different species of birds being seen here.
Early this morning my assistant, Eric Cooper, and I took advantage of that claim to go out with the San Diego Beginning Birders meetup group. We met at 8:00 at Hernandez Hideway at 19320 Lake Drive in Escondio, right on the shores of Lake Hodges.
There are many parking lots on the shore side of Lake Drive, and we chose one of them to park everyone’s cars, about 20 cars for about 30 people. Overlooking the parking lot were lots of eucalyptus trees and oak trees, and in the trees were about a dozen acorn woodpeckers (Melanerpes formicivorus). Here are two of them:
According to the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, acorn woodpeckers are very sociable and usually found in small, noisy colonies. They eat mainly acorns and use a granary tree to store food. A granary tree is a tree with dozens, maybe hundreds, of holes pecked into the trunk, and each hole is filled with acorns. It looks like this:
Acorn woodpeckers use the same granary tree year after year, so if you want to see a lot of woodpeckers, now you know where to go!
Pictures taken by Russel Ray using a Canon 550D.
Out & About San Diego — #5: Go to the Zoo, come home with….
I have an annual pass to the San Diego Zoo and the Safari Park. I go at least once a week to one of them.
The Zoo occupies 100 acres while Safari Park has 1,800 acres.
The Zoo is in Balboa Park near downtown San Diego, while Safari Park is near Escondido, about 45 miles northeast of downtown San Diego.
Safari Park was founded in 1972 while the Zoo was founded as part of the 1915 Panama-California International Exposition.
Both the Zoo and the Safari Park are internationally recognized botanical gardens. When you go to either of them, then, it’s always worthwhile to spend some time looking at the flora, too.
Since it’s been raining off and on for the past several days, something that’s rare in San Diego, the photographers are out en masse looking for those magical pictures with water on them.
I got mine at the San Diego Zoo:
That’s a passionflower (Passiflora sp.), one of my top five flowers. There are about five hundred species of passionflowers but only nine are native to the United States. Most of them are vines, and San Diegans like to grow them on their chain-link fences to lessen the ugliness of that type of fence. You can see the chain link fence in the background of those two pictures.
Passionflowers have a unique structure, and once you’ve seen one, it’s unlikely that you’ll ever forget it. You’ll be able to identify that “weird vine with a beautiful flower” that’s growing on your neighbor’s fence.
The passion fruit is quite large for a vine, and the fruit of Passiflora edulis is actually called passionfruit and used for food and juice in many parts of the world. I can attest to the flavor of the passionfruit since I have enjoyed many a passionfruit margarita at Islands burger restaurant in San Diego’s Mission Valley. Hmmm, maybe it’s the alcohol that’s flavorful?
Pictures taken by Russel Ray using a Canon 550D and post-processing using Corel PaintShop Pro X4.
