Carlsbad Reunion: Balboa Park, Little Italy, and the Mormon Battalion

There were trees for climbing at Balboa Park in San Diego, which we visited on Sunday, July 4, 2021.
 

There were also weird trees in the Succulent Garden for getting tangled up in.

But there was so much more.  Balboa Park was created as part of the 1937 World's Fair, with fantastic, Mission Style buildings surviving from that Fair.

We headed for the botanical garden and art gallery, but they were closed, as a result of Covid.  California has soaring Covid levels, and we assumed they didn’t want hordes of people enclosed in those spaces, which are the only museums which are free to the public.  

Mia found a spot at Balboa Park to help paint a mural.

Mike and Heidi wandered through the Spanish colonial buildings with Audrey.  Audrey found toys everywhere, including fondling some smooth stones in a bowl!

Audrey also loved the Balboa Park fountains!

We visited several of the 20 or so "international houses" created as part of the World's Fair, which were open.  Emilie, Mia, Kirsten and Alyssa were especially interested in those houses, and we stopped by the houses hosted by Britain, Germany, Ireland, and Rumania.  

I enjoyed the British house, with a life-size cut-out of Queen Elizabeth, complete with matching sky blue coat, hat, purse, and shoes with “kitten” heels.  I also enjoyed the Irish house, with Irish oldsters (ex pats? U.S. citizens of Irish ancestry?) sitting in one of the rooms, chatting with obvious delight.

Mia also enjoyed the British house, with its exhibits about Harry Potter.

Emilie led us on a walking tour of the Balboa Park gardens.  

The rose garden was in full bloom, with many varieties of roses labeled.  I went from rose to rose, choosing the ones with the strongest fragrance and brightest colored blooms.  Other family members later said that this was their favorite stop at Balboa Park, as well.

Dave and I rented a sun umbrella and attended an organ concert in the outdoor amphitheater, as Naomi, Spencer, Kirsten, and Michael looked on from the shaded porch.  

It was a patriotic program, since this was July 4, and I was impressed that the primary performer was an American who looked Middle Eastern and spoke with an Arab accent!  As always, diverse populations continue to enrich American culture..

As the concert finished, we received a text from Camille, saying that her family was headed for Salt & Straw, a gourmet ice cream shop.  Kirsten and Alyssa were in Dave’s and my car, and we hurried to Little Italy, to find Salt & Straw.  

By the time we arrived, the Eberts had already bought their ice cream and had eaten it all!

Dave especially liked the honey lavender ice cream, as well as the blue cheese and pear.  Emilie said that the salted caramel was supreme.

We then congregated at the Mormon Battalion Visitors Center in Old Town.  I was captivated by the new, interactive experience.  We moved from room to room in a Disneyesque participation in the Mormon battalion march.  

While some Mormon pioneers headed from Nauvoo, Illinois, to Salt Lake City, a contingent of  500 men, boys and a few women laundresses were recruited into the U.S. Army.  They followed the Santa Fe trail to San Diego, prepared to fight during the Mexican War.  There were, in fact, no skirmishes, and the money paid by the federal government to the Mormon recruits financed their families' trek to Utah.

We found the young sister missionaries at the Visitors Center charming.  Annie, however, who will be leaving for a mission to Kentucky in August, was vastly relieved that she wasn't sent to the San Diego Visitors Center.  "Imagine wearing that heavy costume all summer," she said, "and running into all your friends visiting from Utah, watching you pretend to be a pioneer!"  Each to his/her own.

At the end of the program, we were offered the chance to pan for gold, reflecting the experience of some of the Mormon Battalion members, who were at Sutter’s Mill when gold was discovered. 

After dinner at the condo, Steve led us in a "werewolf" game.  We all sat in a circle, closed our eyes, and some of us were designated as werewolves.  Each "night", as we closed our eyes again, the werewolves "killed" another one of us.  We had to guess who the werewolves were before we all got killed.

Here's Michael, protesting that he's not a werewolf.

Emilie, third from the left, was also accused of being a werewolf.

She hotly protested that she was not a werewolf and accused Spencer, sitting next to her, of being a werewolf instead.  As it turned out, Emilie fooled us all.  She was, in fact, one of the werewolf killers!

Our condos had rooftop porches from which we could see the sea, as well as all over Carlsbad.

Those rooftop porches were great places from which to watch fireworks exploding all over the city on the 4th of July.