One hundred years ago San Diego, a city of about 40,000 people, hosted the Panama California Exposition to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal.
The first stop on the voyage through the Canal and up the west coast of the United States would be San Diego.
The Exposition began on January 1, 1915, and lasted until January 1, 1917.
To help celebrate the centennial, San Diego is beautifying the city, as if it weren’t already beautiful….
Many of the highway medians near downtown are getting new landscaping. Potholes are being filled but apparently to me only on streets near downtown and Balboa Park, and new lighting is showing up on many of the buildings in downtown San Diego.
Recently I went downtown after the sun set in the west to get some time exposure pictures of the new lighting that has shown up these past six months.
This first picture is of the San Diego County Administration Center where Jim and I got married on October 30, 2008.
Both the north and south sides of the Administration Center used to be ugly parking lots. Those lots are now underground two wonderful water features and a playground for the children. I was down there around 8:30 p.m., and the playground was full of children and parents having late night fun. This pictures is of the water feature on the north side:
The south side is were the children’s playground is, so it’s more popular than the north side. Here’s the south side water feature with Wyndham’s new lighting; the blue adds nicely to the downtown visual experience:
Lastly, here are two skyscrapers with new red and green neon lighting stripes. Quite nice:
If you’re flying into San Diego for business or pleasure, try to get a window seat on the left side of the plane. Day or night the view is spectacular. Note that occasionally the fierce Santa Ana winds force the planes to come in off the ocean to land. If that happens to you, both sides of the plane offer great views—SeaWorld, Mexico, downtown San Diego, beaches. That might happen about ten days a year, so your best bet is to get that left side window seat.
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