Balboa Park

In celebration of having completed my dissertation defense, I headed off to San Diego for the weekend to visit my sister Sarah, who is going to school at San Diego State, and my mom. On Friday morning we wandered through Balboa Park which is large and has many unique aspects to it.

The park had an entire section of roses.

It made me laugh that the name of this type of rose is "Howdy Doody"

This was my personal favorite- I love the red to orange to yellow coloration of this type of rose- I forgot the name though (see, unique names like "Howdy Doody" stick)

The park also had another garden section also in full bloom

They also had this twisted, weird plant thingy that almost looks like a monster

But they also had another alligator mosaic that seemed more friendly

Sarah's surprised that he didn't eat her- but he did eat me

I absolutely adore the Spanish style architecture of the many museums located inside the park.


They have an outdoor amphitheater and guess what's inside of the building- an ORGAN. It seems kind of random to me that they would have an organ in an outdoor park.