After an evening of catching up and passing out early from exhaustion/jet lag, Day #2 in California began with H- and B- telling me they wanted to take me to Balboa Park.  I think I was expecting a smaller park with some playground equipment and a few trails.  I definitely did not expect that it would turn out to be a 12oo-acre monstrosity containing not only gardens and walking paths, but also 16 museums and the San Diego Zoo.

We found a parking spot over by the San Diego Chess Club (also located within the park) and set out on the walking paths, passing drum circles, little girls birthday parties, and dog parks.  Finally we made our way to the Cabrillo Bridge (named after same explorer as Cabrillo National Monument), built for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition, which celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal.  The bridge is 120 feet tall, and when you look over the side, you can believe every inch of it.

Crossing the Cabrillo Bridge led us to El Prado, the long promenade which runs past the majority of the museums in the park.  This particular day we didn’t visit any of the museums since we had the baby with us and we wanted to see as much as we could, but later in the week H- and I would come back to visit the Natural History Museum.

The last major sight-seeing stop we took in the park before taking the long trek back to the car was the rose garden on the other end of El Prado.  I don’t think any of us knew how many types of roses there are, and I know none of us knew their names, but we were still fascinated by them and took tons of photos.  My favorites were the striped roses, mostly because I didn’t know it was possible for flowers to do that.  Nature never ceases to amaze 🙂